Linux @lemmy.ml thevoidzero @lemmy.world 2mo ago

[Help] How do I word my grant application to keep my software FOSS?

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping there are people here who work on FOSS and have applied for grants to support their software financially. I am applying for a grant opportunity that is asking for a software from US gov agency.

My requirements:

I want to publish it under Open Source Licenses like GPL (not MIT) so other corps can't take this to use on their product,
The grant agency will get the source code, they can do whatever as long as the license is held,
I will develop the features they want, and request during the duration of grant,
I will want to continue development independently after the grant, or apply for more grants from other organizations,
To clarify the previous point, I do not want to give them the final product so they own it, and I can no longer do anything on the program.

So, if anyone has done similar things, please give me advice on this. Their requirement says "a web repository" should be provided at the end, so I think I can apply with the intention of giving them the software code while keeping the rights. But I don't want to make a mistake in application/contract and lost the rights to the program, I want to develop a lot further than just the features they want for their use case.

Or at least dual license to protect the Open Source Side while giving the grant organization rights to take the code for their other programs because of the money they spent.

20 comments

Reach out to the SFLC, this is something a lawyer should advise you on, not any internet strangers at all whatsoever, no matter how thorough their reply is.

Design-wise: You need a Ulysses Pact. This can also be applied to contracts, preventing you from being pressured into closing your source under any means by licensing it or by signing a contract with yourself
That is probably something you should ask a lawyer for, not strangers on the Internet. But I think if you make the case that you already have a lot of the groundwork for the project published under GPL, you can massively reduce effort by using that, but that'll mean the final project will be GPL licensed as well, most people would agree that's a reasonable trade off. Just make sure it's written somewhere, so they can't pull a fast one on you
- Thank you. I'm a PhD student, so I do not have access to Lawyers that I can ask, and it probably will cost me money to get their opinion if I seek professional lawyers.
  
  If your university has a law faculty they might offer limited legal advice from current students for free or a reduced fee.
  
  You could try emailing the FSF and explaining your situation. They constantly get into legal battles over licencing and care a whole lot about open source. Their opinion is certainly a lot more expert than what any of us can produce :D
  
  It’s worth double checking this, especially if your school has a law school.
  
  When I was in school, we could gain access to unlimited legal council for a small semester-ly fee. Usually it was used for landlord disputes, but this is a great use case, too.
I want to publish it under Open Source Licenses like GPL (not MIT) so other corps can’t take this to use on their product,

Sooo, that's not what the GPL does - or any other Open Source license really. OpenSource is about the freedom of the user, including the freedom to profit from the software (see RedHat, Ubuntu, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, etc. all making money off Linux).

You'll want to research your licenses a bit more to see what fits your purpose if your goal includes "not for commercial use".
- I don't mind them making money off of it, as long as they contribute to the open source community by improving it, contributing upstream, or using it in other systems and keeping those open source as well. I want other people to benefit from the effort I made and published, and if someone wants to improve it, I want others to benefit from there too.
  
  I don't want the case like insulin in US, where the first invention is free because they wanted everyone to benefit from it. But now it's super expensive because of the incremental advances other corps did that are patented. And the free version is no longer viable to use without those incremental improvements.
  
  The GPL doesn't say they need to contribute. It just says they need to publish the source if they make changes. The GPLv3 requires them to allow you to run modified versions
  
  Ahh - okay that wasn't from your wording. In that case you're right that something like one of the GPL variants is probably what you are looking for.
The license you want is a copyleft license, not a permissive license.
I'd like to know about that too.

I imagine you're aware but GPL doesn't directly prevent corps from using your code (just often done because their code is often propriety). They can use it legally as part of their own GPL licensed code or when they are offering software as a service (they don't distribute the binary, it's running on their server). In that case where your code could be running on a server then the AGPL would be preferable if giving software freedom to their users is part of your goals.
- I'm fine as long as it is used in other GPL projects. I just don't want them to take this, use it on some proprietary code and make money/mine data and other things and not contribute to upstream or open source in general.
  
  I hadn't thought about the network usages, I though GPL covered it. So, is AGPL everything GPL has plus software service from network? If yes, then I will use that license. EDIT: Saw that AGPLv3 is indeed GPLv3 + the network thing.
  
  Furthermore you can mix GPL and AGPL licensed code, each part retaining their license. So you can include someone's GPL code in a new AGPL project (or vice versa). It's stated in the GPLv3 license under "Use with the GNU Affero General Public License".
  
  I just don't want them to take this, use it on some proprietary code and make money/mine data
  
  They can't make your code proprietary, but they can still steal peoples data and make money all they like with your code, GPL has no privacy clause
Not legal advice, just an idea.

Publish early and frequently (e.g. on github with a license statement) and encourage others to clone it. Now the code is out there. You can't take it back. Even better if the funding agency explicitly approves this.

You can still dual-license, later, i.e. use a more permissive (or different) license if the agency or a research partner requires this. Just make sure the repo with your preferred licence stays available and uptodate.

The license is less important than you think. OSS projects live as long as there is at least one maintainer.
- Thank you.
  
  From my interactions with the people that'll fund this. It does look like they want me to just develop this. But my advisor has not done this kind of software development grants. And the people I talked to might also not know what their organization's legal requirements are put in contract. That's why I want to know what kind of language I should use in proposal so that it can be used as a point of discussion if someone from their organization says we can't do that. Instead of them just assuming I'll hand over everything.
Further points:

I also have a lot of other libraries and programs that I have developed and published with GPLv3 license, so I also want to integrate them with the new program. Since I don't want to reinvent the wheel for things I have already done. And I'll probably want to integrate this software on things I might make in the future.

20 comments