
Ask HN: Open-source license with special restriction from FAANG using it? - throwaway86534
Ask HN: Open source license with special restriction from FAANG using it?
Is it possible to use a standard license like apache 2 but adding restriction to specifically disallow FAANG companies to use it in any way, thus preventing from what happened to  some recent big open source projects?
======
mtmail
You can add any clause to a license. JSON's license is famous for adding "The
Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."

It probably makes it non-open source and non-free according to OSD and FSF

[https://opensource.org/docs/osd](https://opensource.org/docs/osd) "The
license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific
field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being
used in a business, or from being used for genetic research."

[https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-
license](https://tanguy.ortolo.eu/blog/article46/json-license)

~~~
throwaway86534
Interesting, Thanks. Good and Evil is still a broad category, I assume having
a named company in license to disallow them from using it would in some way
cause more problem due to their name being used i guess?

~~~
gesman
What about countless service providers, consultants and contractors that
[maybe] working on [SaaS] technologies potentially providing services to
FAANG?

Hard to trace/track.

------
Nextgrid
You’d need to define what you mean by a FAANG company. Do you literally mean
the aforementioned companies? In that case they can work around it if it’s one
of their smaller companies like Instagram or WhatsApp. If you forbid usage if
the _parent company_ is FAANG then they can work around it by making a totally
separate company whose only job is to provide a service (using your software)
to FAANG at no markup. If you mean a company of certain size, then it could
have collateral damage on big but not malicious companies, and can again be
worked around by sharding usage of your software to smaller companies to stay
under the size threshold.

------
satvikpendem
If you really want to, make it AGPL and most companies, especially large ones
like FAANG, won't touch it due to the virality of the license.

------
mindcrime
You can do that, but your project would no longer be Open Source by the
commonly accepted standard definition[1].

Personally, while I understand and appreciate the sentiment behind this, I
don't think doing this kind of thing accomplishes very much, and I'd recommend
against it. YMMV, of course.

[1]: [https://opensource.org/docs/osd](https://opensource.org/docs/osd)

~~~
throwaway86534
Yep i understand it wouldn't be opensource per se, i think the question really
is, should it be done, if yes why, if no why not and has someone else here on
HN done it before or have seen a project with such a license before?

~~~
mindcrime
I think we've all seen lots of examples where somebody took an existing
license and tacked some extra verbiage onto it. The recent controversy around
the "Commons Clause" stuff is a good example.

My take is just this: if it's a deeply held ideological thing for you, then by
all means, go for it. But if you want your project to be widely adopted /
used, etc., then in pragmatic terms I think you'd be better served sticking
with a straight-forward, conventional license. Not _everybody_ cares about
this sort of thing, but a lot of people get uneasy using projects that use
"non-standard" licenses.

------
riyakhanna1983
How will you know who's using your FOSS project?

~~~
throwaway86534
don't want to point fingers here but when they start yet another "FOSS project
as service on their platform"? mainly i don't want to prevent other startups
or mid size companies from using it, but the big platforms have a tendency to
just change or tweak the project in small way to suit their platform which
causes incompatibilities with upstream, secondly imho it is not fair for the
project, since the project is trying to survive while these platforms get
bigger and mint money off project contributors work without ever giving back
or affecting it adversely sometimes by taking control of the project.

~~~
gtirloni
Startups and midsized companies do the same all the time. Are you drawing the
line on profit? Number of employees?

As others have said, if you want to make a political statement go for it and
name all the companies you don't want using your software explicitly (and keep
updating that when they work around you).

Personally, I wouldn't bother. If this is for a business idea, rethink your
revenue strategy... licensing alone is a nightmare to enforce.

