RFC - "HOOP License - Help Out, Or Pay."

This is an open request for comments for a draft software license, tentatively titled HOOP.

Feedback via issues and PRs, or direct on twitter, discord, or via email are all welcome.

Problems with existing solutions

A copyleft license often stifles use within the populations that would benefit from free software most, and can often be legally dodged anyway to avoid contributing back to the commons (see the hoops that AGPL etc have had to jump through).
A permissive license allows use by everyone and doesn't feel onerous, but is a nuclear option that abdicates responsibility and control and which allows strip-mining by huge entities.
Neither really support development, which means that open source creation and contribution is most accessible to well-resourced individuals as a vanity project.

Remain free for small entities, creators, educational, private, and individual use.
Encourage direct contribution and the building of compatible ecosystems.
Adopt a similar "just include the license file and you're good" approach for those use cases.
Avoid open software projects being freely exploited by large entities.
Provide a simple negotiated path to larger scales of commercial use that directly supports development.
Suitable for everything except micro-libraries, where licensing would almost certainly become overly onerous.

It's too wordy!
- I want it to be easier to understand.
- But, need it to make minimally ambiguous legal sense.
Hardline libre folks won't be happy :)
Hard to compete on cost with a permissive alternative.
- May be able to compete on features if you actually collect some fees though.
Direct derivative works currently a grey area.
- I think attempted forks can often just dilute work and introduce incompatibility.
- But, it is important for a work to be able to out-survive its creator.
- "Just" allowing independent forks and making the licensing transferrable would allow a commercial entity just forking a "derivative work" and licensing it to themselves, so it's a non-starter that way.
Means testing is very region sensitive.
- Simplest to understand though?
Negotiated licensing requires work on the part of developers
- I think this is a reasonable middle ground though, if it allows more sustainable work.
- Setting the means test bar reasonably high means that there's not a background noise of tiny requests to deal with.
Copyright Considered Harmful
- But, it's the world we live in, so better to weaponise it than abdicate control.