An Open Licensing Organization for Open Source Software
So, I have gone down a similar mental experiment trail also, before.  I like this direction of thinking, although I haven&#x27;t arrived at an ideal solution.<p>What I could not avoid with your type of thinking, was ending up with something that seemed like a patent&#x2F;copyright shell company.  If someone can be excluded from licensing by not paying a due, then is this truly open?  I understand your intention is to re-use open source licenses and add a small clause directing payment for use to this open licensing organization, but ultimately, I think that such an organization may become a threat not a benefit.<p>I might be wrong - the Apache Foundation works pretty well for humanity, and Apache licensing works well also.  And, they seem to raise at least enough funding to keep the lights on from their supporters.<p>I personally always get stuck debating between the concepts of for-profit [1] &#x2F; non-profit [2] and public [3] &#x2F; private [4] goods.<p>I think the tendency in these discussions is not to get specific enough about what we are talking about.  For example, the traditional confusion between &quot;free&quot; and &quot;open&quot; source software... e.g. the &quot;free as in beer&quot; vs. &quot;freedom of speech&quot; [5].<p>In a sense, your proposal would solve that problem because it would create a clear organization supporting a clear license, with a clear compensation mechanism.  However, how would this organization run?  As a non-profit?  As a for-profit?  Maybe a social benefit corporation [6]?  I think the choice is everything, if it can work at all.  There&#x27;s a reason, I think, that open source is especially associated with the rise of the Internet and networks, and decentralization, and sharing.  Perhaps there is not a perfect legal model for such a thing.<p>I think in a naive sense, the concept of &quot;open source&quot; is sometimes thought to be analogous to able to be saying that a copy of the intellectual property can be used and&#x2F;or modified without restriction, the copy can be owned by anyone, and can be shared with anyone, in any situation (commercial or not).  Of course, depending on the specific license (GPL, AGPL, MIT, Apache, etc.) there are differing degrees of how open &quot;open&quot; really is.<p>There is a desire to make something.. truly open with literally no restriction.  Ironically, many companies and organizations might not touch such a thing out of fear of the origin, they worry if they use it they might get sued.  It&#x27;s almost as if we cannot have a situation where there is just a piece of intellectual property, openly shared, without a license (for example, &quot;common knowledge&quot;.. a gray area term as well, but, do you have a license for it?).<p>This again is an area that clarification may help... if you know that you have access to this huge portfolio of IP and source, as a member of such an organization as you propose, you don&#x27;t have to worry about the license anymore as long as you pay your dues.  But, what risk would such an organization carry?  We need look no further than to the recent acquisition of GitHub by Microsoft to see an example, we&#x27;ll have to see how that turns out.<p>I think I&#x27;m rambling now, but I hope some of these thoughts come together to help.  I&#x27;d be willing to chat more about this.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;For-profit_corporation" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;For-profit_corporation</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Nonprofit_organization" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Nonprofit_organization</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Public_good" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Public_good</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Private_good" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Private_good</a><p>[5] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gratis_versus_libre" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Gratis_versus_libre</a><p>[6] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Benefit_corporation" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Benefit_corporation</a>