Launch a Gift Economy License (GEL)

[chadwhitacre]

Brainstorming with @nehzata under getsentry/team-ospo#248 evolved into the idea of writing a Gift Economy License, a beef-up of Beerware, also inspired by VML, a basic permissive license that also codifies the expectations outlined here in OP3 (lego bit, RFC 2119 "should" "may" "must", etc.).

Find a half dozen maintainers willing to relicense, announce together with TD (and others?).

Intent is to be OSD compliant and OSI approved, though probably not at launch.

[vladh]

@chadwhitacre Love this.

• Would you like to get this done for the upcoming Sentry distribution?
• Could this be a cute holiday tie-in? This holiday season, you've been given the gift of Open Source, give something back…
• It looks like we'll have to do some work explaining “gift economy” in this context to people. Would you like me to get started doing some writing and maybe making a website draft?
• Domains:
  • opensource.gift @ ~$20/year
  • opensource.gifts @ ~$40/year
  • oss.gift @ ~$20/year
  • oss.gifts @ ~$40/year
  • code.gift @ $156/year

[chadwhitacre]

Would you like to get this done for the upcoming Sentry distribution?

No. Not enough time and also not necessary, this is bigger than Sentry.

Could this be a cute holiday tie-in?

Possibly! :)

It looks like we'll have to do some work explaining “gift economy” in this context to people.

The license itself would be the explanation, and we can repurpose the Lego explainer video as well.

Domains

Not sure if we make this standalone or have it live on Pledge or what.

[tylersayshi]

oss.gift is sweet. And it could serve as a place to collect interest from prospective maintainers interested in re-licensing?

Like just a landing page, maybe a link to fairsource and a email signup input?

[vladh]

I think a separate domain is the right way to go. A GEL would be a free-standing idea after all. And I think tying it in to the Pledge too much will muddy the concepts for new people. There are plenty of opportunities for cross-promotion.