He has outlined the goals for the post-open licence, saying open source could continue as it is today, with the addition that it could be dual-licensed and the creator could start getting paid.
Perens said users who joined the paid licence - to get the rights to exclusively Post-Open licensed software - would also pay for dual-licensed open source.
This would preserve software freedom for individuals and small businesses, "the folks we really should be helping, rather than the richest corporations in the world".
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The Post-Open licence would require payment from entities with deep pockets — over US$5 million (A$7.6 million) end-user revenue in a year — or companies that included the software in a paid-for product, and companies that wished to keep modifications private.
Perens noted that compliance would be simple: "once a year, paid users account for their software use and end-user revenue, and pay a small portion (we’re considering 1%) of it for all Post-Open software, not just one program. Then compliance is over until next year."
He proposed one zero-cost licence, one paid licence which included the zero-cost one by reference and one operating agreement between all of the developers.
On privacy, Perens suggested all compliance information and the amount of the cheques that companies wrote be under a non-disclosure agreement, with data and payment sequestered to a CPA firm rather than being provided to the overall organisation.
"The public organisation sees totals (use of a program, end-user revenue, etc.) rather than your private data," he added.
"Pay developers fairly for their work," Perens wrote. "Make it possible for an individual developer to stay at home and code all day, and make their living that way. Apportion payment to developers based on software use and the size of their contribution.
"Improve security and quality by reliably identifying developers, providing proper funding for developers to maintain their software, provide cryptographic-hardware-backed authentication and software chain-of-custody.
"Service all Post-Open software through one entity and share profit with developers. Developers maintain their own software rather than operating the front-line service organisation.
"Fulfil the software needs of non-technical people, a job that open source mostly fails at today.
"Collect fair payment from providers and users of software-as-a-service and manufacturers of embedded systems.
"Reverse the power differential of open source, where user corporations with deep pockets exercise control and the actual creators of the software are often unfunded.
"Governance is exclusively by individual software creators, the way it always should have been. Users have a voice, corporations cannot dominate governance and exploit the developers.
"One entity is empowered to enforce on behalf of all developers, and is funded to do so. No more rampant licence violation. Infringement or breach of contract results in loss of rights regarding the entire Post-Open software collection, not just one program."
He visualised there being strong anti-software-patent terms. "Bring a suit and you lose privileges regarding all software in the Post-Open software collection, not just one program."
Perens also outlined the challenges that lay ahead in trying to get this licence up and running.
"This is all a lot more complicated than open source, and requires funding for legal and process work that we don’t yet have," he admitted. "To work, this needs lots of developers. Fortunately, it’s easy for existing open source developers to dual-licence Post-Open, and getting paid is a strong incentive to do so.
"It will be slow to accumulate paid users. Long-term, their expenses will probably be lower than today. Open source compliance departments at large companies can cost US$7 million per year, and security of unmaintained open source is becoming a serious threat.
Post-Open requires a central entity that receives and apportions payment, does enforcement, and operates the service entity (or three central entities, one for each purpose). Open source developers are very independent, and have not had to deal with a central entity until now, even one that they own.
"The apportionment process is complicated and not completely developed. It measures deltas to git repositories, and may require time accounting from people whose work cannot be measured by lines of code. There may be issues with it being gamed, etc.
"There’s an operating agreement to make this all work, and it requires some responsibility of the developer. Open source developers don’t even like contributor licence agreements, this will be an additional challenge."
Perens said developer identification would be necessary for the security mechanism. "Sorry, no anonymity," he added. "Governance that all developers can trust will be a severe issue."
He said processes and legal documents for the new licence were still under development.
Asked if he had presented the idea to others, Perens responded: "OpenUK kindly featured me as a keynote in their "State of Open Source 2024" conference, and I presented the idea there. They had a wide attendance of people from other organisations and the video is here.
"The job of the existing Free Software and Open Source organizations is to promote the definition of Open Source that I created 27 years ago, or the Four Freedoms from Richard Stallman, which actually started as Three Freedoms a whole 38 years ago.
"Most of these groups have that definition written into their constitution in some way, so they are not capable of driving radical change, much as they might want to. It's not fair to ask them for much more than allowing me to speak at their conferences, and to ask their members to participate individually. There are public discussion lists for the project and my personal email is easy to find. I'm available to speak at more conferences. Google will tell you my email."
Asked what was the biggest challenge to be overcome, he said: "I wish there was just one! The most difficult one will be developing governance that developers can trust. Only individual developers should vote. Right now, although a lot of people don't realize, the strongest force governing Open Source is the corporate users rather than the software creators. They own organisations like Linux Foundation, and provide most of the funds for all of the other organisations. That's upside down. The individual developers have to control this, and not development corporations because concentration of power will bias the system toward their needs. And we need to make money independently of those corporations, so that we can be true to our own priorities.
"I have written one document, the zero-cost licence, and an 'elevator talk' which is the front page of PostOpen.org. I have to write the paid licence which I think will be simpler because it includes zero-cost one by reference. I have to write the operating agreement - which will be somewhat big. And then I need legal review for all of those, which either will cost real money or I need sponsorship of a lawyer or a volunteer lawyer. I also have legal questions about anti-trust, and about forming the organisation to support this, and I probably even need to talk with a tax attorney. I currently have a little non-profit that can accept donations and grants to carry out the research and development of Post-Open, we will need a different organisation to actually run Post-Open.
"And I need to develop the system of apportionment of funds to developers. The paid licensees account for their software use and their end-user revenue, and write a cheque, and that all goes to a CPA that keeps it confidential and just gives us the totals. So, companies have privacy. With those totals, we instrument git repositories and get a reading of who the contributors are and how funds should be allocated between them. But there are some people who can't be accounted for by lines of code or text. Code, documentation and translation are easy to price but not illustrations, and not the work of people who have architect or janitor roles for the project. Some folks might have something like a time-card. There would also be vulnerability to cheats like writing something very long without much real thought in it, and both the algorithm and the operating agreement would have to combat that.
"There is also the big PR problem. I think I can get current Open Source developers to dual-license because money is a good motivator. I think I can get businesses, especially the ones that start on the free tier and grow. I am not thinking really hard about the world's largest companies, they will jump on when there is sufficient value, a long time from now, or not. But all of these things are difficult.
"Much as this is a big and maybe impossible job. I know that I will regret it for the rest of my life if I don't try."
