GlobalObjects 101158Anov24
"Prosperity Public License" versus "GPL"
The "Prosperity Public License" does not meet the "official" definition of open source. Both the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative explicitly exclude software that contains usage restrictions from the definition of "open source". For this reason, a Prosperity license used is not an OSI-approved license.
GPL and the sustainability problem
I believe that the idea of "open source" needs to be reconsidered.
The requirement that "open source" software (OSS) should also be able to be used for proprietary software has, in my opinion, led to some upheavals recently.
In many OSS projects, the supervisors are frustrated or literally burn out and no longer want or can meet the requirements. One reason among many others is the lack of appreciation for the work done. I don't mean the lack of "patting on the back" and "clapping", but also the lack of funding for such OSS projects.
It is very disillusioning for supervisors when even companies that earn millions with the OSS application or library, among other things, are not even prepared to donate anything, let alone pay for related services. OSS developers also need money to make a living.
What if OSS slowly dries up because the maintainers and co-developers increasingly turn away from OSS?
Companies that use OSS should not underestimate the resulting supply chain problem. It is not uncommon for an OSS project to access a large number of sources from other OSS projects. Your own project can easily crash if an OSS source you are using dries up. While you may be able to continue to manage a missing link in the supply chain yourself, it becomes more difficult with several dependent OSS resources, as there was usually no budget originally planned for this.
An interesting presentation on this topic can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t85TyH-h04.
GPL and monetary values
To put it simply, the issue has moved to the point where individual OSS developers are relatively unprotected.
Thousands of them work for free on OSS software that is used by a billion-dollar industry without any significant compensation. I don't mean the users of OSS who develop an application themselves or slightly modify an OSS application and try to give it away or possibly market it for "little money".
It is more the large and small multinationals that develop large applications for their customers and have always supplied the source code. Now also the OSS source code used.
Or the endless number of hardware manufacturers of all kinds who like to supply their customers with the adapted or used OSS software for the special hardware in the source code without actually publishing it. Legally, it is sufficient to make the source code of the OSS software available to the customer. What the customer is allowed to do with it can be regulated elsewhere.
And those who offer any kind of service on the Internet, some of which was and is being developed on the basis of OSS, should not go unmentioned.
The creator or maintainers of the original OSS software do not have to be informed about the use of "their" OSS software.
And if the OSS is lucrative and there is too much resistance to bug fixes or adaptations to user requests, you simply initiate a new fork with a lot of media fanfare, take a few important participants with you and let enthusiasts work for you again.
That's why no copyleft licenses
Copyleft licenses such as the GPL impose restrictions on OSS users that are designed to force some form of disclosure of the OSS source code, regardless of whether the OSS project is used for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
GPL in conjunction with a commercial license creates the incentive to purchase the latter license on the assumption that the licensee has an interest in marketing their software as "closed source."
Instead of making the license cost dependent on whether or not the licensee wants to disclose their code, it seems more sensible to tie the license cost to the revenue generated by the licensee's software. So if licensees earn revenue in part as a result of work done on an OSS project, they should share some of that revenue with the person or persons who did the work that earned the licensee the revenue.
Note
The above text and its content is heavily influenced by Geoffrey Huntley and his comments on this topic. I have copied individual passages almost word for word because I couldn't think of anything better to add or change.
His inspiring text can be found at https://ghuntley.com/licensing/.