Re: Need advice for dual licensing
On Fri, 2005-05-13 at 15:25 -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: [NB: Please follow Debian list policy and do not Cc: people unless they explicitly request a Cc. The canonical method of requesting a Cc: is to set a Mail-Followup-To: header that includes your addres. Also, you'll have much better luck if you refrain from top posting.] I'm very sorry, the top posting was not intentional. I will also try not to Cc: to people who don't want an extra copy. On Fri, 13 May 2005, Svante Signell wrote: I just wanted to know if dual licensing is possible. It is possible, but when we talk about dual licensing we typically mean that two licenses are applied to a work, and the user can (at the user's option) pick a specific license to use the work under. OK, so this is the case e.g. with mozilla and openoffice? What you seemed to be asking for was two licenses for different (disjoint) sets of users, which isn't going to be DFSG Free unless both licenses are DFSG Free. [And possibly not even then... we'd have to look at it very closely.] Is it possible to release the code as GPL and if necessary relicense at a later stage? Do all contributors to the improved version have to agree on this change of licence. What about copyright issues for contributed code? Don Armstrong -- Svante Signell -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need advice for dual licensing
On Sun, May 15, 2005 at 12:38:20PM +0200, Svante Signell wrote: in response to Don Armstrong I'm very sorry, the top posting was not intentional. I will also try not to Cc: to people who don't want an extra copy. On Fri, 13 May 2005, Svante Signell wrote: I just wanted to know if dual licensing is possible. It is possible, but when we talk about dual licensing we typically mean that two licenses are applied to a work, and the user can (at the user's option) pick a specific license to use the work under. OK, so this is the case e.g. with mozilla and openoffice? Exactly so. OpenOffice is (some Sun licence) and GPL, Mozilla is MPL in parts and GPL - if I recall correctly. A better instance is Perl - which explicitly offers you the GPL or the Perl Artistic licence at your option. What you seemed to be asking for was two licenses for different (disjoint) sets of users, which isn't going to be DFSG Free unless both licenses are DFSG Free. [And possibly not even then... we'd have to look at it very closely.] Is it possible to release the code as GPL and if necessary relicense at a later stage? Do all contributors to the improved version have to agree on this change of licence. What about copyright issues for contributed code? All contributors would have to agree - in practice, it's very unlikely to happen. Much better is to produce a minimal closed source licence for your commercial/private code - then open it after a period as GPL. This is how Ghostscript worked/works: I think it's also how CUPS works. You can only really do this if you have private code of significant value to begin with. It may also be worth looking at MySQL's way of doing things, or of providing the code free under the GPL but charging for support - and insisting that commercial use requires a support licence to include rights to use your logo and brand [which is more or less what Red Hat is doing at the moment - once your licence terminates, not only can you not get updates but you probably should remove all RH logos/artwork and so on. The RH clones - CentOS, White Box Linux - have to get around this by not including any of the logos/artwork at the beginning.] Not good really, software/information wants to be free :) Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need advice for dual licensing
On May 13, 2005, at 10:36 AM, Svante Signell wrote: Anybody got a good advice for how to dual license some of the software I've developed. I would like to use GPL for non-commercial use (e.g. private persons and universities) and a commercial license for companies. I could be wrong, but I see no means of doing this. The reason being that once someone has received the code under the GPL you have no control over them redistributing it via the GPL license they go it under. Thus the following scenario: - private individual receives your software under the GPL - private individual posts it on a web server for download under the GPL - commercial organization downloads the GPL version. -- Jamin W. Collins -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need advice for dual licensing
On Fri, May 13, 2005 at 06:36:53PM +0200, Svante Signell wrote: Hi, Anybody got a good advice for how to dual license some of the software I've developed. I would like to use GPL for non-commercial use (e.g. private persons and universities) and a commercial license for companies. Please Cc: me since I'm not subscribed to this list. Can I suggest something similar to the Aladdin model for Ghostscript - release the current version as paid for, for commercial use, supported by us: after a year GPL it and put support into the community. If your code base is substantially similar from one release to the next - 1.) Bugs will be fixed when noticed by the wider community on the GPL version: if the bugs are still in your Professional/Supported version they're fixed for free, effectively. 2.) Feature requests from the GPL'd version can be rolled into your supported version. 3.) You get free advertising for your pro version and kudos from the rest of the world by releasing slightly older code under the GPL. Be careful how you advertise/plug the paid for version: Aladdin fell out with the FSF because the FSF thought that the free GPL'd version advertised the commercial version too much. Just a thought, Andy -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Need advice for dual licensing
Sorry for making inroads to other peoples territories. I just wanted to know if dual licensing is possible. Obviously is is not possible to combine GPL and other licences, but why are people talking about it? I've seen several notes about this on the web: Note that I have not releasesd any (code or binary whatever) yet, so whatever choice made about dual licensing is for you to advise on, not me I'm just the copyright holder so far On Fri, 2005-05-13 at 10:15 -0700, Don Armstrong wrote: None of the following is legal advice, or should be construed as legal advice. On Fri, 13 May 2005, Svante Signell wrote: Anybody got a good advice for how to dual license some of the software I've developed. I would like to use GPL for non-commercial use (e.g. private persons and universities) and a commercial license for companies. First off, he GPL would apply to both non-commercial and commercial users alike, unless the user(s) had a license that was more permissive. Furthermore, restricting a license to non-commercial use only is quite definetly not DFSG Free, so such a work would not be eligible for inclusion in Debian. As far as doing a dual license, there's really nothing stoping you from offering different terms to people who find the GPL problematic if they're willing to pay, so long as you're the actual copyright holder. Some authors of GPLed works do this. As far as the actual text of the licenses/copyright grants, you'll need to retain professional legal advice if you stray from the recommended verbiage given in the GPL, as we can't supply it to you. Don Armstrong -- Svante Signell [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
