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Licensing play

warning

This is an early draft and isn't yet up to our standard. You can contribute improvements.

Licensing can weaponise control. By offering components or IP under restrictive terms (e.g. field-of-use limitations, revocable licences, patents with traps), you can limit how others build or scale.

It creates a honeypot effect, drawing in others, only to trap them later. You appear open, but retain kill switches. Done right, it deters entry without obvious aggression.

Ask: does your open strategy leave room for others to enclose? If yes, you’re vulnerable to this.

  • Patents & IPR (Deaccelerators): Directly aligned — both create legal or contractual friction to prevent progress.
  • Limitation of competition (Deaccelerators): Licensing can raise structural barriers under the guise of openness.
  • Standards game (Market): You can push a “standard” with restrictive licensing to sabotage adoption or fragment competitors.
  • Open Approaches (Accelerators): The inverse — restrictive licensing mimics openness but denies the benefits.
  • Defensive regulation (Defensive): You might lobby for licensing terms to become regulatory expectations.