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List:       koffice
Subject:    filter licensing
From:       "Jacques Chester" <jacques.chester () student ! usyd ! edu ! au>
Date:       2000-06-20 5:54:51
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David Levitan wrote:
> 
> My idea was to have it open source and allow it to be incorporated into
> open source projects, while also selling a commercial version to
> companies that want to incorporate it into commercial products.

Some questions here:

1) Will this "commercial version" have additional sourcecode
and functions above the "non-commercial" version?
2) Will these additional functions be implemented as closed-source
additions to the code, a la Sendmail Pro?

These two questions have an important impact on which
license you will select. I will elaborate on this more in a
second ...

[..]
> Let's say a company will pay me $10,000 for the rights to link
> against the libraries. 
[..]
> But if Koffice wanted to use it,
> it would be completely free, along with source.

Right here you've violated the Opensource Definition.
The OSD specifically says that opensource licenses
do not discriminate between different people or
different fields of endeavour. All parties - any person,
any group, any company - must have the same access
to the code under the same conditions, or the license
isn't opensource. This is why Sun's SCSL license is
*not* opensource, as it discriminates between for-profit
and not for-profit use of the code.

David also asked:

> If I license it under the GPL, but require all those who help to split
> the copyright with me (or actually, the company that I own), will that
> be accepted by most people? I'm also guessing that I can then take all
> of the source (including all modifications) and release a commercial
> version at any time. Is that right?

If you own the copyright in a wholly and uncontested
manner, you may issue the code however you wish
under whatever conditions you wish. You may, if you
choose, maintain a GPL'd tree and sell that source
under a different license to other companies.

But you must have the copyright to *all* of the code,
and it *must* be uncontested. Further, you cannot
revoke the application of the GPL to already-released
code. In short, you won't have a viable contract.
Nobody will sign over their copyrights so that *you*
can on-sell *their* work in a closed format.

The FSF demands copyright assignment for legal
and administrative reasons. Firstly, they need to
defend themselves from those firms whose employee
contracts lay claim to all code written by employees
as being theirs. In these cases they need the company
to release copyright on GNU coding to the FSF.
Also, when the FSF upgrades the GPL (and Stallman
is currently working on a GPL v3), they are able to
move the entire codebase forward in one action, rather
than waiting for the assent of hundreds of contributors.

Going back to my earlier questions, I think we can
rule out the GPL for what you have in mind. What's
left are highly permissive or semi-permissive licenses
such as the BSDL and MPL (respectively). From a
commercial viewpoint, the BSDL is more attractive.
There aren't really any restrictions on BSDL'd code.
From a Stallmanist perspective, the MPL is preferred.
While MPL'd code can be mixed with code of other
licenses and with closed code, it cannot itself be
closed. The MPL is like the GPL, minus the viral
behaviour. MPL'd code remains open, no matter what.

Given these circumstances, I don't feel that your
plan of selling to one group and freeing to another will
work. Your best bet is to make it fully opensource and
hope somebody will subsidise you to work on it. If
you feel that your code might be useful to commercial
outfits, select the BSDL or MPL licenses. My own
preference is for the MPL, but that's more to do with
my Stallmanist leanings than any practical advantages.

Hope I've helped.

be well;

JC.

(opensource-license-discuss escapee)

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