Aave V3 Launch strategy: Code licensing

Okay. To get this going a little bit, let me summarise what was discussed and proposed until now.

We basically have two options proposed until now:

  • Keep the V3 protocol Open Source, preferably under the MIT license (see here for license text The MIT License | Open Source Initiative) - this means that, “without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software” will be granted to anyone who wants it.

  • Restrict the use of the V3 protocol under the “Business Source License 1.1” (see here for license text Business Source License 1.1 | MariaDB) - this license restricts the use of the software for up to 4 years (with room for the license holder (AAVE DAO) to make exceptions within that time). After the time has passed and the “change date” has been reached, the license will transfer into a GPL3.0 license, and will thus be open source (see here for license text GNU General Public License version 3 | Open Source Initiative)

Both licenses are non custom and free to use - a custom license is not needed and the license itself will not cost anything.

But keep in mind, that under the second scenario, i.e. restrictive license, the AAVE DAO will most likely need to be incorporated, which will incur legal cost, highly likely running cost and it will most probably take weeks if not months to get this off the ground.
To get it going quicker, the license could first be granted to the company with a contract that transfers the IP to the AAVE DAO the minute it is incorporated - this will cost a bit more money (for legalese) but could cut the time significantly for V3 to be released. This also requires the willingness of the company to do, as the AAVE DAO has no control over that.

I really like to see further discussion about this. The thread in itself has just 722 view as of now. But this is a big decision. A lot may just choose to vote, rather than participate in the discussion, but it is very important to get as much feedback as possible. A tweet of this thread by the right persons, could and should give this a bit more traction.

EDIT: A little clarification to the time delay mechanism of the restricted license. The 4 years mentioned is the maximum the license allows. The proposed delay ranged from 1-2 years.

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