Ask HN: What is your experience with dual licensing?

[bumblewax]

I’m curious to hear your thoughts from both a dev and a user point of view.

My thinking is, rather than trying to build and scale a managed saas, build the product under some permissive open source license for non-commercial and indie use, capped by some annual revenue number. Then, private enterprise license for those who make the big bucks.

Is something like this doable or too naive? I don’t necessarily think the “someone takes your code and runs” thing is a real problem, but I also don’t see this type of licensing often.

[scombridae]

don’t see this type of licensing often.

That's because it relies on people ignoring a $20 bill on the sidewalk.

[bumblewax]

How so?