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Is there a License that requires the user to donate if they make revenue? (lemmy.giftedmc.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I tried a couple license finders and I even looked into the OSI database but I could not find a license that works pretty much like agpl but requiring payment (combined 1% of revenue per month, spread evenly over all FOSS software, if applicable) if one of these is true:

the downstream user makes revenue (as in "is a company" or gets donations)
the downstream distributor is connected to a commercial user (e.g. to exclude google from making a non profit to circumvent this license)

I ask this because of the backdoor in xz and the obviously rotten situation in billion dollar companies not kicking their fair share back to the people providing this stuff.

So, if something similar exists, feel free to let me know.

Thanks for reading and have a good one.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I want to say that all this backdoor incident (s, not the first and certainly not the last) only shows how well the FOSS model works. Not only for catching it promptly before it even was released, but these attacks which require a good amount of skill and time, and therefore probably money, demonstrate that some bad actors are fearful of FOSS. Also I want to point that voluntary FOSS contributors are not exploited even if some big corp uses their software without paying anything, as long as they respect the freedoms they have to give to their users. Also many (maybe most idrk) contributions to FOSS aren't made by volunteers, but through foundations/donations models paid professionals or companies putting developer time to them (I suspect this could be the case here with the guy from Microsoft that caught it).

[+] [email protected] -6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I agree that it shows that the model works. It also shows where it can be improved. Markedly by paying the initial maintainer so they would have been able to make this their only job if they so chose (which would be no problem I assume if companies had to pay 1% of revenue in total to all FOSS they use and which take donations).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

@haui_lemmy Look, I think we all agree that the maintainer financing needs to be improved, but what you are suggesting is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You would remove the whole "F" of the "FOSS" by adding restrictions on the freedoms. So we just need to keep looking, this is not it.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago

I will. Thanks for the hard but constructive feedback. 99% better than most reactions I got with posting an idea to help people.