I’m trying to understand which licensing model makes the most sense for small personal tools — not as products, but as experiments to learn how to distribute software before working on a larger project.
To explore this, I released a tiny utility as source‑available rather than fully open‑source. The code is visible, but the license is restrictive. GitHub here works only as a landing page, not as a full FOSS repo.
Here’s the project I’m using as a test case (not promoting it — just showing the model I’m experimenting with): https://github.com/Mietkiewski/MPomidoro
My goal isn’t to push the tool itself — it’s just a way to understand how people interpret these categories:
Is source‑available meaningfully different from closed‑source?
Do you expect small tools to default to open‑source?
Does hosting something on GitHub imply a FOSS expectation?
For someone planning a larger ecosystem later, which model is the most reasonable starting point?
I’m genuinely trying to understand how open‑source communities see these distinctions before I commit to a long‑term direction.
My main restriction is redistribution — people can read and modify the code for personal use. Since the default with no license is already “all rights reserved”, this project is mostly a test for me. I’m also cautious about someone copying or commercializing it, so I’m treating this as a learning exercise about licensing and distribution.
Yeah, that’d mean you need some type of source accessible license. Not sure which specific one tho, you’ll have to look deeper into it’