BUSL version of FSL? #70
Description
Hi.
I want to make our products Fair Source. I really like the FSL writing, but I am unsure if it would be a good idea for us to only have 2 years.
We make a system for collecting meter values for energy companies. With a 2 year licens I think it would be quite easy for any larger consultancy company to pick up our older code and get it to work satisfactory. Most of these public tenders are you set up once and hopefully it will work for years without much interventions.
It might be ok for the main application, but out protocol adapter server, protocol specific receiver services etc that are decoupled from the main application would be up for grabs.
I did release one of our vendor specific / protocol specific services as BUSL last week where I tried to incorporate the writing of the FLS as a BUSL. https://github.com/u9n/mqtt-sn-gateway
I did the same with one of our communication libraries a while back: https://github.com/u9n/dlms-cosem
I felt like I was holding back functionality that logically should be in the communication library but kept it in our main application as it would make it really easy to make services to talk with energy meters. I wanted to put it in the communication library but I also didn't want to give my competitors all the tools to make competing solutions. With the BUSL i felt better about putting all functions in the library.
Most installation of out software is on-prem, we are looking into managed services too, but it is hard with energy companies as clients. I don't think the FCL is good for us as we don't have any premium features we want to lock away.
We want to get out of the public tender bog. Here is our software, use it and if you make it part of you business processes consider paying for a support contract.
So my question is if it would be a good idea for a Fair Source template for the BUSL to match the intentions of FSL for companies that need a bit longer time before it turns open source.