The Dead Pool Pledge
I love PaaS. Recently I’ve gone to great lengths to figure out a way to build applications using ONLY SaaS and PaaS platforms. I managed this with a mix of wercker, github, orchestrate.io and pivotal web services.
But with the commitment to any third-party platform, comes a certain kind of fear.
I’m a believer in open source. And I’m ALSO a believer in commercial software. As much as I believe in the rights and freedoms of the user, I also value the rights and freedoms of the developer - to license his or her work in the way that they see fit.
So here’s what I’m suggesting: a “Dead Pool Pledge”.
Add this github account to your private repositories as a collaborator. You can keep those accounts private, and your source code licensed under whatever terms you feel is appropriate, as long as your business/project/coop is a going concern.
But the day that your company ends up in the Crunchbase deadpool, my bot will republish your source code under ASLv2. Seem fair?
I know that if Wercker, Orchestrate.io and others adopted this, I would sleep a little better at night.
Caveats
Okay, maybe we should try and contact you first - to find out if you’re attempting to sell off those assets to a company who has a legitimate intent to continue business operations.
And yes, this whole thing probably ought to have some sort of contract in place - maybe something that the SFLC or the EFF could draft up.