As a remedy, Perens proposes that licenses should be replaced by contracts. He envisions that companies pay for the benefits they receive from using FOSS. Compliance for each contract would be checked, renewed, and paid for yearly, and the payments would go towards funding FOSS development. Individuals and nonprofits would continue to use FOSS for free.

One of the people coining the term is more levelheaded and realistic than the average FLOSS community member.

I’ve actually tried to promote paying for opensource in multiple companies and there has been either silence or responses like “it’s free, why should I?” or “I would, if they sold a license”. Perens’ ideas are actually up to date and I believe we need a license for opensource like the creative commons licenses: free for personal use paid for commercial use. Companies shouldn’t be able to make profits from free work without paying back.

Anti Commercial-AI license