It's an interesting article but it seems to me that when it comes to opposing abuse of power, free communication is more fundamental than free software. Without sufficiently free communication, free software is practically unavailable and for many purposes (anything that involves communication with others) it is unusable. Without sufficiently free means of communication, the fediverse will cease to exist. Access to and use of the Internet is increasingly regulated.
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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Thanks for sharing. Although I'm an enthusiastic open source user, I haven't written any code of significance, so I'm not aware: has anyone made a license where use is restricted to individuals and democratically controlled organizations? I'm picturing that would allow for some degree of profit motive while encouraging things like worker co-ops and excluding venture capital controlled entities.
Open Source won not Free Software. Author didn't demonstrate that viral Free Software licenses lead to same undesired state as permissive Open Source demonstratably do.
OP is author
Non-commercial terms hinder the ability of others to fork a project, which is a concern if something bad inevitability happens. [They give into temptation and add anti-features, or people do/say something which makes them untrustworthy or unassociatable].
Doesn't it only hinder people trying to make a business off it? It doesn't stop donations? I don't know anything.
Some are fortunate enough that they could take up the work without monetary returns, and perhaps donations do not count depending on the software license or depending on some country's law. Most would find that a hindrance and then users must hope it doesn't get worse or find something else entirely - like proprietary software.
I can see how in the short term companies like NextCloud would be hindered using a non-commercial license, but in the long term I think non-commercial licenses might be the way to go for some things, if we want to encourage society to publicly fund some software development for crucial infrastructure.
If a country has a universal basic income then it would be easier for people to choose to donate time to a project.