I am not a lawyer, and none of this is legal advice, but these licenses seem SAF (Sketchy As...).<p>More precisely, using software written with these licenses would be something I would never do, either in an Open Source project or a commercial project.<p>Consider for example the 'Patent Defense' section of the Polyform Defensive license. If I am reading this right then if you have a patent and use Polyform Defensive licensed software from Example,inc. to the point that stopping using the software is a major hardship, then Example, inc. can infringe on your patent and be safe because you won't risk losing the right to use their software.<p>Or the 'Sales of Business' section. Let's say Example,inc. is building a blog hosting platform and Open Sources a library for an image carousel under Polyform Defensive. Exemple SA start using it for their Computer Based Training site. Later Example,inc. enters the CBT market. If I am reading this right then Exemple SA now has to either stop using the software, or leave the CBT market - and might not even have a choice about leaving the CBT market.<p>A lot of work has gone into making useful and effective Open Source licenses that benefit both sides when a company open sources their software (software user and the company making the software). A company has a range of protectiveness they can choose: Affero GPL, GPL v3, BSD, MIT, Apache, EPL are some well known ones [1]. Why do we need the PolyForm licenses, especially when they seem to me to be several steps back toward the dark ages of commercial licenses, and being so ambiguous you need a lawyer to evaluate it every case.<p>You also have the question of legality in every region. Aren't noncompetes heavily restricted in California.<p>I also am of the mind that 98% of noncompetes and NDAs are hubris and unnecessary, other than to use as a collar to retain employees. Better to retain through incentivizing than threatening. And also, ideas are a dime a dozen..most people are not going to steal your idea as it's the execution and the funding backing it that will make the difference.<p>Lastly, a key thing to not is that the Polyform Project itself says these are not Open Source licenses[2]:<p><pre><code> PolyForm is not…
Open source or free software. There are plenty of
existing open source licenses. PolyForm is not a
substitute for them, but an alternative for those
who want to license source code under limited rights.
</code></pre>
There are Open Source licenses out there that legal experts state will protect you, whatever your range of needs if you are willing to abide by the Open Source ideals[3]. Why not embrace the Open Source movement, instead of saying mired in the past?<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-source_software_licenses" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-so...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://polyformproject.org/what-is-polyform/" rel="nofollow">https://polyformproject.org/what-is-polyform/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://opensource.org/licenses/category" rel="nofollow">https://opensource.org/licenses/category</a>