Write a Fair Core License

[chadwhitacre]

FSL-1.1 does not allow for monetizing local use. From @ezekg at #16 (comment)

If I had my perfect license, I'd write a license that was ELv2 (non-compete i.r.t SaaS, with commercial features protected by license key), but with a time limit like BUSL and FSL, where it would eventually become Open Source.

The overall sense from #16 is that we would have a separate Fair Core License vs. incorporating local use monetization into Fair Functional Source License.

[ezekg]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I see what you're saying now i.r.t. official "Fair" licenses for ease-of-adoption, and I agree. I am onboard with a separate Fair Core License that can take the benefits of ELv2 i.r.t. self-hosting, but make it eventual-OSS. I think having the 2 separate licenses, Fair Source vs Fair Core, makes the most sense, so as not to make the FSL any more complex than it needs to be (it's supposed to simplify BUSL, not make it more complex). A distinction between FSL and FCL also nicely allows for the "fair source" and "fair core" terms to intermingle, while keeping them separate. I really like that.

I'd be happy to make a license switch to an FCL license. That eventual-OSS clause would remove one of the more confusing parts of the ELv2, and that is — what happens if the licensor goes out of business? Sure, under ELv2, you can fork — but you can't add/edit/remove the licensed features without legal risk. So in a terrible turn of fate, you effectively can't use those features anymore if the licensor goes bust, because come renewal time, there's nobody to renew the license — which is a big risk for any company buying a license for an ELv2 project, and one I often have to discuss with potential buyers.

The only "workaround" for that issue with ELv2 is to purchase a perpetual license (i.e. $$$), so that even if the licensor were to go bust, the licensed features can always be used, legally. I hate this workaround, because it comes off as predatory, and it feels like it goes against my company values. But even with that, they're unable to actually maintain those features (assuming they take over maintenance), because they still can't modify the licensed features, legally.

But in the case of FCL, after 2 years, they can use and modify the licensed features without a license, so they just need a minimum 2 year license contract to remove that risk.

[ezekg]

Felt inspired and wrote a draft post on what it'd look like to go Fair Source (or more accurately, Fair Core).

[chadwhitacre]

Love it! 😍 PR-driven development in the Bezos sense. ;-)

I think a Fair Core License as an augment to the Fair Source License that lives together on fair.io is a strong story. Good luck! Keep us posted!

[ezekg]

Sorry to put you on the spot — but @hmeeker would you be interested in working on this together? I know you helped draft the FSL, and also lead drafting on the ELv2, so seems like a perfect fit. The Fair Core License (FCL) would be the FSL (non-compete, eventual-OSS), but with an additional limitation similar to the ELv2, which would allow a vendor to license additional functionality in the application, which would be useful for monetizing self-hosting:

You may not move, change, disable, or circumvent the license key functionality in the software, and you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software that is protected by the license key.

After the 2 years, the FCL would change over to Apache 2.0 or MIT, just like FSL.

Let me know if GitHub isn't a preferred place for discussion. 🙂

[chadwhitacre]

I've made an email intro as well. 🙏

[hmeeker]

Yes, I would be interested. I reached out to you on Linkedin.

…

On Wed, Jun 5, 2024 at 8:21 AM Zeke Gabrielse ***@***.***> wrote: Sorry to put you on the spot — but @hmeeker <https://github.com/hmeeker> would you be interested in working on this together? I know you helped draft the FSL, and also lead drafting on the ELv2, so seems like a perfect fit. The Fair Core License (FCL) would be the FSL, but with an additional limitation similar to the ELv2, which would allow a vendor to license additional self-hosted functionality: You may not move, change, disable, or circumvent the license key functionality in the software, and you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software that is protected by the license key. After the 2 years, the FCL would change over to Apache 2.0 or MIT, just like FSL. Let me know if GitHub isn't a preferred place for discussion. 🙂 — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#17 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ATLOOI4MQ22Z6K7DDB72OALZF4UHBAVCNFSM6AAAAABIYUSRZ2VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDCNJQGM2DENJYHA> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

-- Heather Meeker 510-463-1116 Appointments: www.cal.com/heatherjmeeker

[chadwhitacre]

Heads up that per @dcramer we will not be renaming FSL to Fair Source License prior to launch. Not sure what that means for the effort here and what we should name the resulting license. Also unclear where it gets promoted, I think it means we're asking you to host it somewhere other than fair.io and we will link to it there.

[ezekg]

@chadwhitacre any particular reason?

[chadwhitacre]

I'll let @dcramer speak to it further if he wants, but the sort of trade-off we're considering is that people might get the impression that Fair Source is only the FSL.

[chadwhitacre]

Alright, we had some more internal conversation (which I lightly edited my comments above to reflect).

The fundamental concern is that renaming FSL is not strictly necessary to launch Fair Source, and distracts us from reaching that goal. Even if it makes sense we should defer the decision to after the initial ship, we should not be treating it as a blocker. We can even maintain existing FSL as a flagship representation of Fair Source w/o renaming, nothing stopping that.

Also unclear where it gets promoted, I think it means we're asking you to host it somewhere other than fair.io and we will link to it there.

Our proposal is that you create a repo for the Fair Core License (a fine name from Sentry's pov fwiw) under your own GitHub org. The reason is that it's better for Fair Source if there are multiple entities participating and this would reflect this reality. FCL can still function as Fair Source's recommended alternative to FSL when some local restrictions are desired.

How does this sit?

[ezekg]

What if it was called the Functional Core License? Since it's going to be essentially the same text as the Functional Source License, only with an additional limitation, I don't feel like a brand new name is warranted. And a Fair Core License may have the same fundamental problem as the Fair Source License i.r.t. people thinking it's an official license of the Fair Source movement. (This would mean that FCL could even be added to https://fsl.software as a variation of FSL.)

I know Functional Software is Sentry's legal entity, so let me know if it doesn't sit well and I can brainstorm alternatives.

[ezekg]

Thinking on it more, I like Fair Core License more than Functional Core License. The latter doesn't convey the functional similarities between "open core" and "fair core" like the former does, so it loses some meaning and just kind of loses its flair. Anyways, I'll probably go that route or go with something like the Keygen Source License if there's somehow objection later on i.r.t. naming. When the license is drafted, I'll either create a repo and website under Keygen's existing org, or under a new org. 👍

As far as the relationship between FCL and FSL — do you want the FCL to somehow mention the FSL in its text, that it's based off of it? That's the only thing that I don't like with the lack of cohesion in naming now between FSL and FCL; they're largely the same license text.

wdyt?

[dcramer]

Naming things similar won’t educate folks. Our best outcome comes from education. We have to help people understand all the facets of open source and most importantly, the access to software. If you distill this idea into its most fundamentals it’s about access. We believe giving people software, access to code, it can change everything. It was that for me, and I believe everyone in this group. My primary goal is to recreate that access, and the goal. The internet has gotten much bigger, but not more difficult. We have an opportunity to keep it open. Sent from my phone. Pardon the typos.

…

On Fri, Jun 7, 2024 at 7:04 PM Zeke Gabrielse ***@***.***> wrote: Thinking on it more, I like Fair Core License more than Functional Core License. The latter doesn't convey the similarities with "open core" and "fair core" like the former does, so it loses some meaning and just kind of loses its flair. Anyways, I'll probably go that route or go with something like the Keygen Source Licensed if there's somehow objection late on i.r.t. naming. When the license is drafted, I'll either create a repo and website under Keygen's existing org, or under a new org. 👍 As far as the relationship between FCL and FSL — do you want the FCL to somehow mention the FSL in its text, that it's based off of it? That's the only thing that I don't like with the lack of cohesion in naming now between FSL and FCL; they're largely the same license text. wdyt? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#17 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAAFYOVOW74HWSAHOWRUZPTZGJRETAVCNFSM6AAAAABIYUSRZ2VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDCNJVG42TMOJZG4> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[ezekg]

@dcramer I agree that naming isn't the most important thing, especially in the grand scheme of "fair source" as a whole, but in the case of the FCL, it is an important thing. For a variation of FSL to be successful, it needs to clearly show its roots in the FSL, otherwise you just create an environment where people are confused on the relationship between FSL and FCL (e.g. why is FCL using the FSL as the bulk of its text but not officially associated with FSL), and thus are less likely to adopt FCL as an alternative license even when their project's monetization strategy also includes self-hosting.

I wanted there to be some synergy here since the FCL and FSL texts will be so closely related. So to me, this topic is less about fair source and more about how to make this small variation on FSL successful so that others would want to adopt it, while making it clear that it's just FSL with an additional limitation. Ultimately, making it an ELv2 alternative for those that want to be eventual-OSS.

To me, a name could accomplish that, which is why I thought Fair Source License and Fair Core License made so much sense. The names have an immediate relationship and educate on purpose before even diving into the texts.

I guess I was under the impression that FSL and FCL would be under the same umbrella, that they would have some sort of synergy, and that Keygen would be among the list of FSL adopters (even though FCL is a variation), but it doesn't sound like that's a mutual goal. That's fine, but it gets me less excited about drafting a "new" license and relicensing to it when I could just stick to ELv2 (remaining "fair source" IIRC), even if it isn't eventual-OSS like I want.

Idk, lots of back and forth happening. I think I'm going to step back and watch how the fair source launch goes and examine the feedback we get. I'll continue to draft FCL (whatever it ends up being called), but ultimately I think I'm going to put a pause on rushing a relicense from ELv2 for now until I can see a path I can take for FCL to be successful.

I do want Keygen to be eventual-OSS, just not sure what that looks like right now. Feel free to close this issue. 👍

[dcramer]

@ezekg my main point is having separate licenses does not detract from the goal of Fair Source. In fact, it does quite the opposite - this thing only matters if its a larger community effort, and that only happens if its open. Forcing the idea that licenses must be named a certain way actually creates a lot of complexity, particularly when there are already licenses that maintain the values we're pushing for (BUSL, for example).

I dont have any objections to people naming new licenses whatever they want, or pushing for modifications of existing licenses to go from semi-open to eventually-fully-open, but we dont have to actually have those "managed" by this effort either.

This is mostly us recognizing that the success of this will not come from us building every license possible, but instead making sure the values are articulated well, us recognizing the licenses that achieve those values, etc.

[ezekg]

@dcramer understood, and I agree i.r.t. Fair Source. I was just on a different page i.r.t. FCL. I think there's been a lot of unpredictability from my POV since I've not been in the conversations being had outside of GH (and that's fine — I'm not expecting to be in conversations outside of GH — but from my POV it has resulted in a bit of confusion on overall direction).

Regardless, I'll continue to charge forward on FCL and relicense when the time is right.

We can close this since it's not directly associated with Fair Source anymore.

[chadwhitacre]

Good luck figuring it out @ezekg, keep us posted on where you land.