For a few years I've wondered about the viability of a "source-available" license with a lot of user-friendly terms (like being able to distribute modified versions which anyone else can use as long as they themselves have a license for the original work, etc...) and a built-in GPL/BSD/etc... conversion after N years.
IMHO, the maximalist position of the RMS camp, while rightfully paranoid about the dangers of fully proprietary software, isn't the optimal solution. Yes, certain kinds of open source projects have been extremely successful, but a lot of this has been driven by corporate interests (i.e., people working on open source projects as a part of their work) and the software that gets built reflects and reinforces these interests.
I'd be happy to pay to have the latest version of some really useful software that respects my rights in lots of other ways (e.g., more control over and access to my data in the app, and be able to tinker/adapt it as I see fit, with full source), particularly if the alternative is that this software doesn't exist. If feels like, at least in some software domains, that the alternative are either (1) user hostile proprietary software or (2) nowhere close to the proprietary alternative in terms of features and robustness.
Obviously that's not the case for stuff like databases and operating system kernels, but that's what it often feels like out of these back-end type packages.
IMHO, the maximalist position of the RMS camp, while rightfully paranoid about the dangers of fully proprietary software, isn't the optimal solution. Yes, certain kinds of open source projects have been extremely successful, but a lot of this has been driven by corporate interests (i.e., people working on open source projects as a part of their work) and the software that gets built reflects and reinforces these interests.
I'd be happy to pay to have the latest version of some really useful software that respects my rights in lots of other ways (e.g., more control over and access to my data in the app, and be able to tinker/adapt it as I see fit, with full source), particularly if the alternative is that this software doesn't exist. If feels like, at least in some software domains, that the alternative are either (1) user hostile proprietary software or (2) nowhere close to the proprietary alternative in terms of features and robustness.
Obviously that's not the case for stuff like databases and operating system kernels, but that's what it often feels like out of these back-end type packages.