Programmer, Gamer

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 11th, 2023

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  • First realize what is being talked about is the generally agreed upon open source definition https://opensource.org/osd

    While it seems they have simplified the license removing some reasons it’s not to be considered open source, it’s still restricting commercial uses in the following two restrictions:

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

    Notwithstanding the above, you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software related to payment to the Licensor in any copy you distribute to others."

    In short open source would only require the software be distributed with source under the same licensed as recieved, thus can’t restrict it to non-commercial, nor prevent the changing of payment details.

    Obviously it’s a reasonably permissive license, and possibly won’t impact you from using it as an end user. It’s just has some restrictions for the creators to request payment, and to prevent third parties profiting off the product. Think Creative Commons, share alike, non-commercial for software. (While most will consider this fair its not quite fully open)

    One reason they went this route was to prevent third parties form distributing their software with ads and using it in systems they are actively attempting to provide alternatives for (ie software that may spy on your system useage/and call home) the non-commercial clause has more teeth than say MIT where it would be relicensed, or GPL that while the software source would need to be provided might still be embedded in a ecosystem.