

Ask YC: How to choose the best Open Source license for your project? - jasonlbaptiste

Hey guys, we're starting to go through the process of open sourcing our project.  Problem is, it's hard to figure out which license to go with. Has anyone here gone through the process before? What licenses do you prefer + why?  What works for commercial open source companies?
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trevelyan
I head an open source project that provides bilingual semantic analysis of
Chinese (<http://www.adsotrans.com>). The commercial opportunities we get come
from having the best and most flexible software in the market. (If anyone
wants to launch a semantic search or advertising network in China, I'm your
man). Being open source is irrelevant.

There have been three advantages to being open source in my experience: (1) it
can help potential clients find you and simplifies the sales process since
everyone is already crystal clear what you provide, (2) it can attract users
to contribute things that aren't software, but that the software helps you
generate (content, data), or (3) you want other people to contribute to the
actual code base.

Neither #1 nor #3 are good enough reasons to go open source in my opinion if
your goal is making money. The only advantage you'll have over a closed source
company comes with #2 - in which case you aren't a software company at heart.
All of these rules go out the window if you're working in a really, really
niche area, but then your business is really consulting.

My advice would be that if you REALLY want to go open source for some reason,
use a license that permits others to use and develop your software, but
doesn't permit them to redistribute it. This will prevent others from forking
the code commercially, but won't deter hobbyists and/or developers from using
it to build systems themselves. Restrictions on redistribution also give you
the freedom to change the license in the future when you figure out what you
should be doing while protecting early adopters from having the rug pulled out
from under them. At that point they can either continue developing the
software themselves, or start paying for it.

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davidw
If you can't redistribute it at all, it's not really Open Source. The GPL is
the most restrictive license of those that meet the OS definition, more or
less.

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davidw
Depends on your goals.

It's not a bad question, but I wonder if someone hasn't written a definitive
answer yet...?

