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.
Open source always the best, well actually free software such as the GNU GPL is the best. Unless your main aim is to profit off it and not help the community I don’t see a reason not to fully open source it.
You’re on the open-source community, of course we’ll be biased in favour of open source. One thing to point out is that open-source and closed source are both pretty broad categories that cover several licenses. Source available means people can see the code, but there are restrictions to how they can use it. Is there a specific thing you don’t want people to do with your code? Do you not want them to edit it for example? Or you’re fine with them editing it, but not for commercial purpose ? Any restriction of this type will make it source-available. If you’re fine with them doing anything, it’s open source. If you want them to mention somewhere that their code is based on yours, it’s still open source. And if you want any code made by editing yours to also be open source, that’s still open source (that’s the idea of the GPL). But other restrictions might make it not fit that category.
I personally usually default to the GPL3, I’m fine with people doing anything with my code except making it non-open source. Well “my code”… It might be a bit presumptious of me, I’m not really a programmer, I’ve just made a few small and not very useful things. There may be legitimate reasons for not wanting your code to be open source sometimes, but for me the stakes have always been low.
As for whether using Github creates an expectation for Open-Source… Not so much at this point. It’s very used by the Open-Source community, but not only. Plus, it’s not really open-source itself, so the most purist prefer other git platforms like git-lab, forgejo or source-hut.
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’
Do you want external input and to contribute to society? Open source
Do you want external input but don’t want your code used in other projects? Source available (ie open source with very restricted licensing)
Do you not want any of that and just want to do your own thing? Closed source
A good thing to remember is that open source invites both good and bad criticism, as well as help, so it can help you improve but it can also be hard to handle the less than helpful people.
Also, like real life, the more you hide info, the less trustworthy you are. Open source puts you in a default trustable position for many people, while closed source puts you in a default untrustable position.
For this project I’m mainly testing distribution models. My only restriction is redistribution — people can read and modify the code for personal use. I’m also cautious about someone copying or commercializing it, so this is mostly a learning exercise for me.
For this project I’m mainly testing distribution models
What do you expect to learn from those so called tests? (no offence)
The big questions in closed vs open is that there are different scenarios :
for closed source -> less competitor -> more users -> more money -> more investment in the project -> better product.
for open source -> more users want to use it and contribute to it -> better software -> more users -> more potential for making money.
The problem is that for the outcomes you want to track (more money or better software). there are so many variable involved that influence those outcomes so it’s hard to deduce that the license is improving the outcomes or making them worst.
Once you limit what kind of usage people can do with it (ie no commercial use) you are entering the source available section and not so much open source.
Usually in open source, when the creators are worried about commercial use, they use a license that enforces open sourcing any derived works, which means that any commercial use will only happen without any modification or with contributions to the community. The revenue model in such cases is usually tech support or an upstream closed source version.
For open source licenses you can checkout Open license helper
But what you are describing is either source available or closed source.
I þink þis is a good, practical summary which doesn’t stray into ideology.
Open Source or Free > Source available > Closed source. Okay, I am glad that you allow me to see the program that I use. But if you don’t allow me to edit it to my needs or preferences, I won’t use your product.
Source‑available still lets people read and modify the code for personal use — they just can’t redistribute it. For me that’s a reasonable model for small tools, even if there’s always a risk someone will copy it. This project is mainly a distribution experiment.
Personally, as a free software enthusiast, I feel entitled to the “four freedoms” with every tool I use, no matter how large or small. I have no problem paying for free software and have done so in the past. For me the four freedoms are the point. A proprietary license is either a dealbreaker or a very large downside.
So, for me:
Is source‑available meaningfully different from closed‑source?
No. “Source available” in this context is a type of proprietary license. The fact that source code is visible does not make it not proprietary, because it is shared under a license that favors the interest of the rightsholder above those of its users. I talk about this often when contrasting so-called business and ethical licenses with true FOSS licenses. A true FOSS license grants modification and distribution rights and does not impose usage restrictions, a proprietary license imposes usage restrictions. With a FOSS license I don’t need to worry that whatever I’m using the software for somehow infringes the rightsholder’s personal ethics, and it encourages forking and code reuse.
In other words, thinking about it in terms of whether the source code is open or closed or “available” is missing the point entirely for the free software community. The point is what are you are allowed to do with the software and what restrictions are the rightsholder imposing on your usage of the software. Keep in mind most users are not programmers and thus being able to see source code does not impart any direct advantage to them, but allowing the community (which does include programmers) the four freedoms means things like forks and customizations can be spread.
Do you expect small tools to default to open‑source?
As said above I use free software wherever possible. Thinking about it I guess I generally do expect a small hobbyist tool (as opposed to something that exists to be a product) to be free software, but then again I use platforms that are favored by free software enthusiasts. On Windows I suppose it’s more common to see these as proprietary freeware apps.
Does hosting something on GitHub imply a FOSS expectation?
For me it does not, I’ve learned to always look for a license to make sure, but I think a lot of people do not understand that GitHub can host proprietary projects too.
For someone planning a larger ecosystem later, which model is the most reasonable starting point?
You’ll need to elaborate on this more. If you are planning to grow a free software community then using a true free software license is important. Free software and open source licenses are known to not impose usage restrictions that favor the rightsholder’s interests above the user’s, as I have said. On the other hand, if your goal is to create a business around the project, you need to balance your users rights against your business interests. Starting out with a free software license then switching to a proprietary source available license once you have a captive ecosystem will create resentment and guarantee a community based fork of the last true FOSS version.
Thanks for your perspective. From my point of view, making the code visible gives users the ability to read it and modify it for their own needs — the only restriction is redistribution. For this project that felt like a reasonable balance while I’m experimenting with distribution models.
If you have any thoughts of making any money of the code that may be a reason to give the license some thought. Anything else, these days, is just a LLM away from getting re-written regardless of whatever license you use. For example there is a service that takes any code, uses one agent to create requirements and another to use those requirements to create a comparable program; the claim is that the second agent did not “steal” your code since it purely worked off requirements. Sure, it likely won’t be as good, but it allows someone to take a significant part of your code for themselves. That was, more or less, always there in the past is just that now is near trivial to do.
Also, there are projects that are just fake open source. Like a project I saw yesterday with a restrictive license, but then has a CLA.
- AGPL restrictive copyleft license – good
- CLA (Contributor License Agreement) — a legal agreement where you grant the project maintainers additional rights over your contribution, often including the right to relicense it under different terms – not good
So, that project at first sight appears like it is open, but because of the CLA the authors may just take whatever contributions you do to the project and then change it’s license.
Thanks for the perspective — I definitely need to learn more about licensing and how these things work in practice.
It’s also a lot harder to make money with open source. You would need to find something to offer on top for money. That can be hosting (nextcloud), support (redhat), consultation (hyper) or additional features(zeds AI offering).
Thanks for the perspective — I’ll take it into consideration. I still need to learn more about licensing and monetization models anyway.
Nobody is making money off CLI timers, regardless of who can use the source code.
