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  • iweiniwein@mas.to
    Jun 30, 2026, 6:24 AM

    A team I'm part of is in need of software that helps farmers track complex processes on their farm. This software is being built with EU grants.

    It's a shared desire to make it open source, but which license is best is still unclear. I'm asked to make suggestions, which I can reasonably expect to be followed. My earlier experience here is poisoned by venture capitalists, so I need to reset my baseline.

    I'm hoping to read expert opinions on which license is most fitting and why in this particular context.

    If you could pick a license for a public good tool made available for farmers, what would it be?

    Boosts welcome!

    #askFedi #FOSS #RegenAg

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Replies

  • Truls (Klarname)truls46@mastodon.social
    Jun 30, 2026, 6:29 AM

    @iwein The EU has their own license for open source projects, mainly intended for public sector. Maybe that would be an option?

    "Although the potential users of European Institutions' software are mostly other public sector administrations, there is nothing in the EUPL preventing its broader use. The EUPL could be used by anyone who holds the copyright to a piece of software."

    eupl.eu/

    The link also explains why they chose to create another open source license.

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  • iweiniwein@mas.to
    Jun 30, 2026, 7:56 AM

    @truls46 thanks for the spot on suggestion, and putting the dialog exactly where I feel I need the most help :)

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft describes the EUPL specific flavor of Copyleft weakness.

    This weakness is a good thing if you want to allow commercial use of an open source framework under specific circumstances, SaaS is specifically mentioned.

    I'm not sure if an open source _tool_ (in contrast to framework) should have this intentional affordance for commercial derivatives. Personally I'd rather piss on John Deere's grave than write code for their proprietary data hoarding bullshit with public money. Which is obviously a strong opinion that needs a bit of nuance before it is published to my bosses 🤣

    Do you know how copyleft EUPL really is when tested in court?

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  • climbertobbyclimbertobby@chaos.social
    Jun 30, 2026, 9:00 AM

    @iwein

    If you want to encourage community maintenance etc. and discourage commercialization I would go with a copyleft license like GPL, if you have codebases for libraries and user facing tools maybe L-GPL for the libraries and GPL for the tools. For web-apps you could also consider the GNU-affero, that has the requirement to make the code available when offering it hosted.

    Look up to the compatibility of the different GNU licence versions. If I recall correctly v3 of all are compatible.

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  • climbertobbyclimbertobby@chaos.social
    Jun 30, 2026, 9:03 AM

    @iwein

    If you want a permissive licence I would go with MIT. I once used the boost software licence because I grants re-use rights to organisations as well as individuals. Depends mostly on whether your funder would like this I guess.

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  • climbertobbyclimbertobby@chaos.social
    Jun 30, 2026, 9:06 AM

    @iwein And last but not least: check the licences of your dependencies. If you link against GPL libraries your code will also have to have a similar licence.

    I got the impression, that that would not be a problem for you. But it might restrict the choice of licenses, so it's easier to choose.

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  • Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
    Jul 1, 2026, 5:19 AM

    @iwein A question close to my heart! As I come from a farmers family and now work at Red Hat. It’s a complex topic and you will hear a lot of opiniated voices on this. Here’s my offer: let’s have a call or email conversation. I have 30 years of experience with this topic and I have access to some really brilliant legal experts. @peterwyrm

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