The importance and value of an open source project being used commercially

As you may recall from both Chapter 1, and Chapter 3 there have been generally two approaches to software licensing: permissive (meaning one that has minimal restrictions on reuse of the code) and copyleft (meaning that the code license has specific restrictions to ensure any derivative works also stay under the same open source license). Copyleft licenses are generally used by projects where taking the project and reselling it commercially is a large concern.

There are some use cases where that is a valid concern, namely in the area of open source software. which is more end user focused, such as a desktop application such as LibreOffice, Inkscape, GIMP, or Firefox. However, that doesn’t mean the software can’t be used commercially as over time, we’ve seen creative ways around this. Examples include offering services and support around the software itself, “open-core” models...