General Comment to anyone finding this thread:

We need to make something very, very clear because it seems people have just gone nuts here, so: time to clarify.

Ever since the top comment here about licenses changing, people have gone crazy on this thread. This reaction is misguided because the issue they're reacting to doesn't exist; it's not real.

There are two cases to consider:

1. You're an individual using BrowserBox standard. None of this affects you. Thanks to the polyform strict license, you can just use it for personal use.

2. You're a company operating legally. None of this affects you either; you won't have any problems with the license changes.

There is no bait and switch here. The license changes are clear, and there's a considerable amount of time since it changed. The only people who would have a problem with the changes are those trying to illegally use the old licenses with the new code--but before this thread came up, I would have thought there weren't a huge number of people trying to do that. Anyway, this "fraudulent license use", is what I mean when I say "invalid and revoked." We would actively try to stop them from doing that.

We understand if the language used has confused people or if it has been misinterpreted. The language could have been more clear, and I apologize for not making it so.

However, any language we've used when changing the license always just means we're changing it--and trying to give notice of changing it!--and means that the previous licenses are invalid and revoked from that point forward. We never said it's retroactive. And when we talk of "previously released versions" we mean that the new license does not just apply to source code, but to the binaries, NPM packages, and so on, as we go on to specify. Again, from that point forward. And again, language could be more clear, we're never saying it's retroactive--and we're doing nothing wrong by changing the license. So please stop trying to say that we are!

So now that we've clarified that, the more troubling thing is as follows: People have just gone crazy here, which is weird because the only ones who would be shitting themselves about this would be companies who are trying to illegally use old licenses with new code. But why would they be so dumb? And then so dumb to reveal their fear at their own illegality online? Well, I guess criminals are dumb.

The old licenses, revoked and invalid for over a year, don't give you access to any of the new code, and don't give you access to Pro. There's a long way from the old code, to the new code, and an even longer way to Pro. We are not worried about these old licenses, we think it's a good thing that people have had in the past a variety of ways to integrate our journey's development snapshot, and continue to do so if they want to use the old stuff. It's just another part of the funnel, and is in line with our intention which we originally had to give people a sampler. But we changed the licenses to figure out a business model. But people are acting like this is a massive issue for us, but it's not: none of this affects our Pro revenue. And this old code is so far from that, people are not getting anything of the current value of that anyway. We're not worried about it, but people are acting like it's this massive thing, which is weird. So I think they're just projecting.

Even if you actually believed we retroactively changed it somehow, you would be confident in the legal protection, so you wouldn't care...unless you were trying to illegally use old license with new code. So, nothing justifies the insane crazy level of abuse and fake accusations on this thread from other commenters. The only ones who would think this would be a problem, would be the ones using this illegally--so please shut the fuck up! Because you're just revealing yourselves, and we don't want to sue you. We don't want to have to.

We're shocked, because before this thread we didn't know anyone was really trying to do that. I mean, we know there's always piracy, but we see these hysterical comments coming from people at companies in Canada, and it's really nuts.

The hysteria surrounding this issue is a fake, crazy problem that people have invented, which is baffling--because it only seems to reveals they want to do something illegal with the code, which is crazy.

Why have people gone berserk on this thread? I don't know. The main point to remember is that you wouldn't care unless you were doing something illegal with this. Perhaps the illegality of what they're trying to do is what's making people nervous, and that's what we're seeing from these hysterical commenters.