Gumroad’s license wouldn’t meet the widely regarded definition of open source

[tomhow]

Original discussion:

Gumroad’s source is available - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43580103 (380 points | 9 hours ago | 185 comments)

[greenavocado]

What a lovely and radioactive mess. While there's a definition for "your company," edge cases like contractors, consultants, or complex organizational structures might create ambiguity about who is bound by the limitations. The immediate termination for any patent claim could be overly broad, potentially triggering even for legitimate patent disputes tangentially related to the software. The prohibition on sublicensing could create problems for legitimate business arrangements, particularly for development agencies or consultancies.The provision allowing licensees to cure violations within 30 days is vague about what constitutes "practical steps" to correct past violations. The license doesn't clearly address the status of derivative works or modifications. While the license mentions adjusting for inflation using the CPI, it doesn't specify how often this should be calculated or who determines the adjusted thresholds, creating potential interpretation conflicts. There's no clear mechanism for monitoring or enforcing revenue thresholds. Good luck!

[ameliaquining]

Note that the HN submission's title was changed to "Gumroad’s source is available" after it was screenshotted for this post.

[ssddanbrown]

Additionally, this submission's title was changed from "Gumroad Did Not Become Open Source Today" to "Gumroad’s license wouldn’t meet the widely regarded definition of open source"

[ronsor]

The way the license is written is similar to https://polyformproject.org/licenses/noncommercial/1.0.0/

[redkoala]

Open source licenses as they exist today aren’t sustainable to run a business. We’ve seen with the cloud providers how easy it is to launch a competitor if you don’t have protective licensing. Gumroad’s licensing is still small business friendly and protects another Gumroad clone from being launched.

[ssddanbrown]

I would argue it is possible to run a business and be sustainable on open source, it's just harder and is not so compatible with the growth that many want.

I don't have an issue with this kind of license being used where open source does not suit, but I don't think we should change/widen the definition of "open source" to suit the sustainability needs of those that open source isn't compatible with, at the impact of the freedoms and open rights it provides.

[xboxnolifes]

Which is fine. Not everything needs to be defined to be suitable for businesses. It's even fine for things to be defined to be explicitly not suitable for a business.

[ivanmontillam]

> Gumroad’s licensing is still small business friendly and protects another Gumroad clone from being launched.

That's fine and dandy, but that doesn't inhibit me from rewriting the code from scratch and creating a clone myself by just matching Gumroad's existing feature matrix.

RoadGum.py, here I come!

[Tomte]

For web services maybe. I don't see Amazon destroy the business of a desktop application.

[Osiris]

It seems to me what they are really doing is offering a free self-hosting license to businesses that make less than a given amount in sales.

This allows them to offer a free "plan" without incurring the hosting costs of providing the service.

[chungy]

If you want to use something that is currently approved by the OSI, but at the same time is crafted to drive revenue, you can use the AGPL.

[CivBase]

IMO this is a losing battle. Regardless of good intentions, the term "open source" is simply not descriptive enough to carry connotations about licensing. To the layman all it means is that the source is open (accessible to the public). IMO the OSI would be better off coming up with a more clear term and popularizing that rather than trying to convince everyone that their restrictive definition of "open source" is the one true definition.

Don't get me wrong. I think OSI's approach to open source is admirable. I think there should be a useful term to describe what they currently call "open source" and I think projects which use those licenses should be celebrated. I just don't think they're going to win the battle for the term "open source" in the long term.

[mcherm]

> To the layman all it means is that the source is open (accessible to the public).

I disagree. To the layman I think "open source" means "I can use it for free". Which in this case may not be true depending on your employer and whether this is a good revenue year or not.

I think OSI's definition is well thought out, widely understood, and regularly referenced. We should continue using it.

[rognjen]

Ah the eternal debate between open source and Open Source.

[abc-1]

The owner of Gumroad is a millionaire, but for some reason decided to crank up the cost of charges from 2.9% to 12.9% a few years ago. Needless to say, most people who don’t like being screwed switched to Stripe or another provider. That’s all you need to know about Gumroad.

[redkoala]

As a marketplace platform, it’s still lower than Apple/Google/Valve’s 30% cut. You pay for distribution, security, pre-integrations, shopping cart and other capabilities if you don’t want to do your own software development.

[jokethrowaway]

Given they're a merchant of records, cost of compliance increased, mainly thanks to europe (that seems to have as a mission to ruin working people' lives as much as possible).

Stripe + Lemon Squeezy was a competitor.

Paddle is a competitor (which I use precisely to avoid having to deal with worldwide regulations) and they charge around 5%.

Gumroad also gives you a marketplace so there's some extra value.

I pay 25% for another marketplace, so 13% is not that crazy if they can bring you traffic.

[skrtskrt]

I mean Stripe has gotten bazillions in VC money allowing it to take huge losses in order to grow to its point.

Gumroad is tiny and does not have the economies of scale of Stripe, without knowing their financials this does not say anything at all.

[ptspts]

How much does Stripe and typical other providers charge?

[byyll]

Again with the pointless discussion about what the "widely regarded definition of open source" is. The source is there. That's it.

[p_ing]

IMO the distinction is important; it tells me, broadly, what I can and cannot do with the source code.

Heck, the .NET Framework source has been available for eons (referencesource.microsoft.com), but you can't go compile it and build your own .NET Framework distro (Mono is a different story).

[neilv]

The term "open source" was coined for a specific meaning, and codified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

Destroying the meaning of words is an activity for Orwellian villains.

[insane_dreamer]

> That's it.

No, that's not it. What you can do with the source code is just as important as the source code being available.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> The source is there. That's it.

No, that's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Source-available_software

[preisschild]

"open source" has been defined by the OSI since decades and this does not fit that definition.