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What purpose does the custom license serve? Of all the hills to die on for a project with source available on Github...

> This project is licensed under the NANOME VR PRODUCT SUITE

https://github.com/matryx/calcflow/blob/master/LICENSE.md

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Digging a bit, it appears this is funded by an ICO, or at least created by a company currently running an ICO? Too bad that basically short-circuits to "smells fishy" to me right now; hopefully they can pull through and build a track record of credibility.




Nanome Team member here. Can't blame you for the skepticism, the blockchain space is full of nonsense these days. We are, in fact, running a token sale for our decentralized R&D platform, Matryx. Calcflow will be one of the first dApps to integrate Matryx. By open sourcing calcflow, we hope to establish our commitment to open-access STEM and build said "track record."

https://matryx.ai


So, a 3d graphing program, competing with the TI-84+ from the project's README...

Is going to be notably tied to a custom eth token?

That idea does seem to contribute to the nonsense you mention.

Especially considering the README complaining about competitors being "unintuitive", but then just slapping `blockchain` on a visualization program

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Also pardon my pedanticness, but its "Source available", most people consider "Open Source" (as a branding) to be open to access, changes, and use. You have released the code, sure. But you are massively restricting how that code is used (including preventing the program being used with other versions of the same program??)

https://opensource.org/osd for the "common" definition of the term


Thank you for taking the time to respond.

Do you know why the project is released under a custom license, rather than something familiar? If this could be summarized in a few simple sentences I'd appreciate it. Ain't nobody got time to read all that legalese.

For example: is the purpose of the license to prevent commercial re-use? In other words: what does this custom license accomplish that no normal OSI-approved license could?


The primary function is to prevent commercial reuse. We work with a lot of institutional and enterprise clients and it's a bit complicated to protect their purchase of our software while allowing others to modify the source + grant them free personal use.




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