fossas / fossas/commons-clause

Rename license to describe its impact and omit confusing "Commons," like "No Reselling Clause"

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Description

https://twitter.com/kevinverse/status/1032392644649832449 requests improvements here. Many, perhaps even half, of this week's complaints were about the name "Commons Clause." This name is unclear in 3 ways:

1. The word "Commons" is heavily used by the Apache Software Foundation (see https://commons.apache.org/ and @apache). That confusion is exacerbated by the fact that one popular license is the Apache License. An average person who reads "Apache License modified with Commons Clause" is very likely to believe that both licenses were created and supported by ASF. Also, the existing [Creative Commons](https://creativecommons.org/) project adds to the confusion. "Commons" may be the single most confusing English word to use in a license name.
2. It doesn't describe anything about what the license does, like "No Reselling Clause," "No Aftermarket Clause," or "No Hosting Clause" would. While one can probably do better than those 3 ideas, all are much clearer than "Commons Clause."
3. The word "Commons" tends to make people think that the license is removing restrictions rather than adding to them. Whatever one's view of the license terms, the name should make clear to a casual reader/downloader that this Clause is adding usage restrictions (as the "No" prefix does), not removing them.

Example license statement with new name:

> This project is licensed Apache 2.0 modified with No Reselling Clause.

or

> Apache 2.0 + No Reselling Clause

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