Minor license stanza edge cases

[Amorymeltzer]

As the license stanza is a relatively new addition, I thought I'd ask about a few edge cases and see what others feel would be best for some software types. This is largely academic and most weirdos can probably be styled as :other but there are a few here that wanted to clarify and check my thinking.

How should we style applications that are themselves 100% free-as-in-beer but either require or offer other services for pay? There're a few cases here:

• Software like dropbox and evernote (scale or "cloud"-esque applications) can probably be :freemium since they offer some spaaace for free. Subscription-based services that need a constant flow of cash (I don't think there's a WoW cask yet...) would likewise fall under :commercial. Okay, easy one.
• What about software like nike-plus-connect or doxie that require the purchase of hardware to actually be useful, or applications like idisplay and notifyr that require a paid pokedex app or the like? As I see it, either we go the "cost" route and style them :commercial or the "app" route and style them :gratis. I favor the former if only to be somewhat less misleading, but I think both make sense.
• In a similar vein, what about:oss that offer paid, subscription-like services? ngrok and toggldesktop both offer the source under an :oss license but offer additional services for pay.

Finally, what about software that offers the source but appears to be closed for redistribution, modification, etc.? I've only found one that this truthfully applies to, lynxlet. A candidate for :other, perhaps, or even a perpetual state of :unknown? Please correct me if my thinking is wrong.
Edit 17 Dec 14: Retracting that, it's :closed based off of http://opensource.org/docs/osd

Part of the issue is that the license stanza is dealing with (rather well, imo) two birds with one stone - info about open source licensing, and cost. I suppose you could argue that the name "availability" better fits the purpose of the stanza, but that's seems counter-productive.

[vitorgalvao]

I’ve found myself with this question with a few casks, and to solve the question in my mind, I always kept one notion in mind

but offer additional services for pay

This concept of “additional services” is the key. Since the start, we’ve decided best to not become a discoverability service, which brings that for the most part a user must know about a piece of software to download it from homebrew-cask. This means they should mostly know “what they’re getting into”. For some context, the license stanza was thought out in the context of fonts, since those limit usage (as opposed to software, whose licenses mostly limit modification). In this regard, with apps we’re talking mostly about being informative (a curiosity), as opposed to a contract (something that details how it can be used). You can pretty much be sure you’ll be able to use an app downloaded with homebrew-cask however you’d like; not so with fonts.

All this to say licenses don’t imperatively need to be absolutely correct. I’ll even argue :closed sub-licenses are mostly irrelevant (though I do think they’re good), since they mostly describe free/paid, and going back to not being a discoverability service, the user should likely already be aware of if it’s one or the other.

So to finally answer, when dealing with these cases I always consider the license of the app itself. It doesn’t matter if additional services are offered, hardware needed, or even require a different app that itself costs money; my question always is “what is the license of this binary I’m downloading”? This way the answer becomes clear, and things outside the app never cloud its definition.

[rolandwalker]

my question always is “what is the license of this binary I’m downloading”? This way the answer becomes clear

That's such a perfect rule for us because it is succinct, memorable, and fast to apply. Some form of that should be in the doc.

We aren't thinking about, say, the business plan of the company, just the rights and limitations associated with that binary. Alfred is :freemium because the binary can be upgraded. Dropbox is :gratis because there's just the one free binary.

@Amorymeltzer, I think you are converging on our philosophy that we cannot cover all the cases. One could fully inline all the license texts, but that would be a lot of work/clutter, would fall out of date, and the proposed search-filtering functionality would get lost due to excess of detail. One can increase the resolution of the existing license values, but then there is always one more case just beyond the view.

This is a pragmatic project. If we are pragmatic about licenses we can engineer something Good Enough.

It is rare that someone helps move the project forward merely by commenting. Thanks for the brainpower.

[Amorymeltzer]

Thanks you two, that's actually really quite succinct. Perfect commit @vitorgalvao, neatly tied-up.