01
The Commitment
A non-zero financial commitment.
The license must include a non-zero financial commitment to donate to prosperous software projects, without self-dealing.
Defined Term
profit-left
/ˈprɒf.ɪt left/ · adj.Of a software license: requiring its commercial users to direct a non-zero, recurring financial commitment to other prosperous software — automatically, without negotiation, and without self-dealing.
§ 01 · Constituent Requirements
Five requirements.
02
Eligible Recipients
What counts as prosperous software.
Prosperous software is defined as any software with a license approved by the Public Goods Foundation (PGF).
03
No Self-Dealing
The funds must leave your control.
Self-dealing includes donating to other projects where you exercise a significant amount of ownership, benefits, control, or authority.
04
Composability
Obligations compose simply.
Financial commitments (e.g. revenue-sharing) must compose across licenses in a simple fashion that is easily actionable by users of the software.
05
Inheritance
Derivatives carry the clause.
All modified, extended, and derived versions of the program must also enforce a profit-left clause in its license, with a commitment requirement at least as great as the original program.
§ 02 · Composes With Existing Standards
Built on what already works.
Profit-left is not a replacement for free and open source software — it is an addition to it. A prosperous license is expected to satisfy both foundational definitions in full, and then carry a profit-left clause on top.
Free / Open Source
the four freedoms + the OSD
+
profit-left
a giving-back clause
=
Prosperous Software
sustainable by design
The Free Software DefinitionFSF
Software is "free" when its users hold four essential freedoms:
0
Run
Run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
1
Study
Study how it works and change it to suit you — access to the source is a precondition.
2
Redistribute
Redistribute copies so you can help others.
3
Improve
Distribute copies of your modified versions, so the whole community benefits.
The Open Source DefinitionOSI
A license is "open source" when its distribution terms meet ten criteria:
- 01Free redistribution
- 02Source code is available
- 03Derived works are permitted
- 04Integrity of the author’s source code
- 05No discrimination against persons or groups
- 06No discrimination against fields of endeavor
- 07Distribution of license
- 08License not specific to a product
- 09License must not restrict other software
- 10License must be technology-neutral