> I think even MySQL comes with this type of license. It > is (to me) difficult to understand the thinking behind > this scheme.
Since my company offers a product with a GPL/MySQL type dual licensing too, I can explain the rationale quite easily : If you are using our product to help others and not making any money off it, you are welcome to use it under GPL without paying us anything. OTOH, if you are making lots of money from something based on *our* hardwork, we want to get paid for our hard work too. We are after all a company. And most(if not all) companies operate on a profit model of some sorts, since the deveopers working for them expect to be paid. Think of it like this. A lot of opensource developers work on their project just part-time since some of them do need the cash from a job or business, to feed the mouths at home. In the other scenerion, the company is giving them an opportunity to work on the opensource project fulltime, since now they are getting a salary. Don't you think the opensource projects will benefit, if the opensource developers gave 100% of their working time to their project instead of supporting it just on their free time ? > Some rambling thoughts: If the intention is to promote > open source, then it doens't make sense to make the > code available under any license other than GPL. If > the intent is to earn good karma through open > sourcing/GPL and also make the product financially > viable by selling to those who can afford it under > more restrictive license, who benefits financially? Is > it the open source developer who contributes time and > code, or is it just the company. The intention is to make money from people who can afford to part with it. If you want to use a product for your personal use, GPL doesnt stops you. If on the other hand, you are planning to mint money through mass-distribution by using someone *else*'s work(even if it is in part), only fair that they get their share too. Who benefits financially? The opensource developer *does* gets paid a salary or at least gets a financial contract. Does he gets paid a fair salary ? That is a different question altogether and depends on the company ethics. Cathedral and the Bazaar addressed a few ways of making money from the opensource model. This is just another one. Unless ofcourse, you have a psychological aversion to the idea of making cash, in which case you are welcome to send your paycheck/bank balance to me coming month.. ;) Regards, Abhi _______________________________________________ ilugd mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
