The big difference between a permissive license and a copyleft license is in the obligation of the user when modifications have been made to the code.
A permissive license may require that you make the original source code available to your users, but that does not necessarily apply to your modifications. So if, for example, I have written project X, and license it as MIT, and you add a single feature to it, and now a user wants to see the source code, then you can give them the original code to project X, but you are not required to provide the code for your privately developed feature.
Conversely, with a copyleft license, in the same scenario, you would be required to release the code for your privately developed feature as well to your customer. Moreover, they would then be able to freely distribute that source code as well, including your privately developed feature. That is why the copyleft licenses are often defined as being viral or infectious, because they propagate to whatever code they come into contact with.
So then, the question of boundaries comes into play. What if the software is on another system? For example, you write program Y, and it calls system X across the network. With the GPL version 2, the copy left license does not cross the network barrier. Agpl, however, removes this barrier, making the virality of project X extend to program Y.
In short, copyleft is generally hostile to any proprietary use, and many companies won't touch it for any software that must be distributed to customers. Again, this aligns with some people's political and philosophical wishes, so they do not see a problem with this.
In short, permissive versus copyleft is a fundamental difference in how freedom is defined. The permissive license gives you the freedom to use software however you see fit. The copyleft license tries to eliminate the possibility of proprietary control. It's really two different sides of freedom. Permissive is freedom of the individual from control of the many. Copyleft is freedom of the many from control of the one.
I guess I'd be very happy if there was someone who was much more ambitious than me, who saw an opportunity to make a lot of money by doing sales on the product. It'd be great to work together with that person in a support-type role. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if they wanted to try it alone.
What would hurt though would be to do a lot of work to get it into a state where it was "the best" in some way, and a big player started selling a cheaper fork.
Sounds like you don't want open source then. It's fine, really.
Even the AGPL allows forking. And there's nothing to sell actually.
If you have plans to self managed solutions and don't want to compete with other players doing the same, look into the source available licenses (BSL and others). They are not open source though, so please don't add those two words to your website.
Open source will get you more traction initially since some people won't even consider proprietary solutions in some cases. But it comes at a cost.
If this project is not expected to be your main income, maybe open source would work. Depends on your goals.
When I say sell, I'm thinking "managed hosting and support" -- not the software itself. That seems like a pretty decent approach to me.
Definitely the main goal is to provide something better to people trying to do manufacturing. I'm not hoping to get rich, but also wouldn't mind making it a full-time thing if there were enough demand for new features/support/etc.
Would you be willing to share your approach? I'd love to see it. Disclosure: I'm in the early stages of an open-source ERP: https://github.com/barbinbrad/carbon
It’s an open source ERP system. I’ve been plugging away for about 10 months, but ERP systems are soooo big.
Really I just wanted to build graph-based, stochastic production routing, but there are so many pre-requisites to good scheduling/routing. Like the people, and the parts in stock, and when the required parts will arrive. So I’m building all that first.
It’s also been pretty enjoyable to learn Remix and Supabase in the process. I can’t say enough good about them!
