I feel like the main issue with projects switching between a permissive and less permissive license and back is that starting out as fully permissive in the first place was the main error.
If everybody would just agree to start their open source code as something like source-available or OpenRAIL -requiring companies with more than $5M in annual revenue to pay for the work - we wouldn't be in this situation.
Yeah its a bait and switch. People want the social credit, early adoption, and community embrace of being open source, but they also want a captive business model.
It's not a bait and switch because the old version of the software that was released with the old license can still be used as such. If you call this bait and switch then I suppose this means that you somehow feel entitled to future versions of the software having the same license, forever.
That’s the thing with software, you can automate most future updates, with LLMs and whatnot.
Also, the initial software probably didn’t have a lot of known cves when it was sold.
They won't do this, because starting out as non-free doesn't get the same traction. Now that I think about it, it's basically a form of enshitification: draw people in with one deal, then after they're onboard, change it to something less favorable.
Why is it enshittification if you only have to pay when you have >$5M in revenue? Is your world so shit if you cross that threshold?
I think the issue is more on how you audit such things. Governments struggle (partially by design, but still) to get proper audits on who uses what and how much money they make.
The theory is great, but I'm unsure how you execute this.
Well, that's even more reason to not complain about it.