"Free for the developer" means services we consume, not license
User clarification 2026-06-21 when grilled on package license choice: "Free for the developer doesn't mean that it is free for everyone. Free for only me. The developer as a me only me as a developer only. For me everything is free. Everything should be free or whatever external services I'm using if I'm using. I am using cloud player or any other. Should be in the making of the websites apps from extension VS code extension. Whatever I am making it should be free. Supported for the services I am provided."
Why this is non-obvious: "Free for developer" naturally reads as "MIT / Apache / OSS license so other devs can use my packages." User means the opposite — the COST OF BUILDING the family must be $0 (free tiers, no card, no subscriptions), but the code itself stays source-available all-rights-reserved.
How to apply:
- License questions: default to current LICENSE (source-available, all rights reserved). Don't propose MIT / Apache / GPL unless user explicitly asks.
- "Free" decisions about tooling: interpret as "no recurring cost to chirag127" (servers, services, build minutes, API quotas).
- README badges: "License: source-available" not "License: MIT."
- When evaluating a new service for the stack: free tier check is mandatory; OSS-ness of the service is irrelevant.
Related: no-card-on-file-prepaid-escape, the family rule no-card-on-file.