Happy to announce version 1.0.0 of the Big Time Public License, a software license that’s free for noncommercial and small-business use, with a guar

Big Time Public License 1.0.0 — /dev/lawyer

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2021-06-16 05:00:08

Happy to announce version 1.0.0 of the Big Time Public License, a software license that’s free for noncommercial and small-business use, with a guarantee of fair commercial terms for big-company users.

These terms let you use and share this software for noncommercial purposes and in small business for free, while also guaranteeing that paid licenses for big businesses will be available on fair terms.

As usual, writing this part was the most difficult and important part. I’ve written about this elsewhere. I will probably never be happy with this paragraph for more than five minutes at a time.

In order to get any license under these terms, you must agree to them as both strict obligations and conditions to all your licenses.

This license is very much informed by Blue Oak and the PolyForm licenses. It’s most directly a “fork” of PolyForm Noncommercial and Small Business.

I’ve avoided PolyForm’s “pluggable” concept of “permitted purpose”, for clarity. We’ll likely do the same in the next versions of the PolyForm licenses. Makes for easier reading.

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