Proton AG asking Standard Notes founder to stop a new project — worth discussing

[jonah (Jonah Aragon)]

I am personally not one of the people who feel free software and open source software creates an “unfair” dynamic for developers.

However, in addition to the example you showed in your video I’d also point out FUTO’s take on this whole thing for you to consider: https://sourcefirst.com/, where the crux of their license comes down to:

You may use or modify the software only for non-commercial purposes such as personal use for research, experiment, and testing for the benefit of public knowledge, personal study, private entertainment, hobby projects, amateur pursuits, or religious observance, all without any anticipated commercial application.

You may distribute the software or provide it to others only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes.

I don’t particularly like this license, but you might.

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Some prior related discussions:

FUTO Keyboard

What FUTO didn’t (doesn’t?) understand is that open source licenses exist to protect the user’s rights, not the developer’s. Creating their own license to protect their own rights is perfectly fine, they just can’t be calling it “open source” anymore once the terms infringe on the user’s rights (especially in a discriminatory way) for the benefit of the developers. Open source licenses are what allowed the community to create Redict or the Linux Foundation to create Valkey when Redis went to s…

(^Why I’d agree with Mullenweg that “open source” has a well-defined meaning in the community and should never be misused)

FUTO Keyboard

I wonder if one could add a dead man’s switch to a license like this to try and remedy this. For instance: If the license is changed in the future, all previous iterations of the source code become one of the standard Open Source licenses. If the source becomes unmaintained for X amount of time, the source code become one of the standard Open Source licenses. I don’t know if that would still accomplish FUTO’s goals in particular, but I like this discussion because I tend to agree with their g…

FUTO Keyboard

It is on the roadmap to come up with something like a rugpull clause, where if certain metrics are met, you can just do whatever you want to it. It’s more difficult to put this in legalese. Especially when you’re in a building of people who just want to program all day.

(^Seems like a potentially cool idea, which never materialized at FUTO as far as I know)

The problem with all these non open source licenses is that people are disincentivized to ever contribute to your open source project, and people will not believe in the longevity of your project, because you could disappear any day and the terms of the license would still prevent a new competitor from taking up the mantle and continuing the work.

I think it is kind of key in the back of a lot of people’s minds simply to be able to think to themselves “well, if the Standard Notes team disappears, maybe some new team will pick up where they left off,” and Fizzy’s or FUTO’s licenses inherently eliminate that possibility.

So… a license that says “hey you can’t compete with me while I or my business are still alive” I think could be a good solution to this problem, but like Rossmann above I am not aware of any licenses which currently exist with that “deadman’s switch” type language.