Hive Commons License

The Hive Commons License (HCL) is a proposed alternative to copyleft and permissive open source licensing intended to be self-sustainable while remaining attractive to commercial investment. This balance is maintained by enforcing a self-assessed "tax" on deriviative works that are kept proprietary.

Status: 🔬 Research

Core Provisions

• Software under this license can be used freely so long as any derivative works are provided open source and under the same license.
• Software under this license can be used while keeping derivative works proprietary, but such derivative works are subjected to a self-assessed tax so long as they remain proprietary.
• If a proprietary derivative work’s owner is paid their self-assessed valuation they must immediately open source the propriertary derivative work.

Contributions Wanted

The conceptual and practical feasibility of the Hive Commons License is still being assessed. Any and all contributions are welcome and highly encouraged. Please don't hesistate to open issues, or join our keybase chat.

If you're an attorney with experience drafting software licenses or working with non-profit software foundations your efforts would be especially helpful at this stage!