SUMMARY: Fairly short, just read it. Note that it bans commercial use --
even shareware -- without a seperate agreement. I don't thin kwe want this,
included only for completeness.
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SYPP stands for "Share Your Profits, Please." Pronounce it to sound like
"site."
Preamble
In an ideal world, all software would be free. In the real world, however,
many people cannot afford to give away what they create because they do not
have sufficient income from other sources.
Shareware is the accepted compromise for stand-alone programs. Users only
have to pay if the software is useful. SYPP provides an equivalent
compromise for libraries of code by asking the program's author to share
the profits from the program with the library's author.
License
The package (e.g. .tar or .rpm) that is distributed by the library's author
and its contents (source, binaries, documentation, etc.) is hereafter
referred to as the "Software."
The Software is free for non-commercial development.
Any commercial or government use of the Software, including interna
use, must be accompanied by a license agreement to be negotiated on a
case-by-case basis. The Software is free during the initial evaluation.
Shareware is considered a commercial use, so it requires a license
agreement. However, one is only required to pay a one-time library
shareware fee for the Software and only after the program has brought in
10 times as much as the library shareware fee. (This means that one only
needs to pay when the program is successful, thereby avoiding any financial
risk to the shareware author.)
The Software may be freely redistributed in its original form.
If you make modifications to the Software, you may distribute
them in a separate package as a set of patches. Modifications must not
alter or remove this license or any copyright notices. The Authors are
granted a non-exclusive right to distribute and/or merge your modifications
in future releases.
If you distribute a compiled version of the modified
Software, it must clearly display the fact that it is not built from the
original distribution and must give clear directions for obtaining both the
original distribution and the source for the modifications, without any
charge beyond the costs of data transfer.
If you legally obtain a program that requires the Software in order
to run, then you can install the Software on your computer at no charge as
long as you use it only to run that program.
Notes
The following text is included for clarification only. It is not part of
the official license.
The terms of the commerical license are intentionally vague to allow
flexibility. The spirit of SYPP suggests that one negotiate a fraction of
the revenue from the product as payment, since this is the closest to true
sharing of profit. However, many other arrangements are possible. One
common one is an initial payment to purchase particular usage rights, and
then a smaller, annual payment for continuing support and upgrades.
The dividing line is drawn at the boundary between non-commercial and
commercial development instead of the boundary between open and closed
source development methods because the former seems more reasonable when
considering compensation. Those who make money ought to be able to share it
to help keep alive the project(s) on which they depend.
