[License-discuss] some FLOSS license + commercial: Your thoughts?
I am building a set of generalised libraries and frameworks. Would like to open-source it all; however in the cases where a client wants their custom stuff under a non open-source license; I should have provisions for such a case. So what are my best options? - Currently looking at BSD/MIT and Apache; though have seen LGPL+commercial in many places… Thanks for all suggestions, Alec Taylor ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] we need a new license for earning money
Am Tue, 24 Sep 2013 12:07:01 +0100 schrieb Cinly Ooi c...@theiet.org : Unfortunately, people standing here are not going to modify the Open Source Definition so that you can charge a subset of users. Freedom to redistribute is the cornerstone of the Open Source. We cannot change it, even that wee bit, just for you. I believe when drafting the definition, situations like yours were already considered. As I see it, you are not If it was only my situation, I wouldn't have asked. But I'm also an Open Source Evangelist and FSFE member and have detected this common pattern with Open Source projects becoming mature, usable, successful. They don't fit into the Open Source world any longer and start escaping into dual licensing, Open Core, closed source forks or only older versions remain free. Not only the projects are lost but there is also a brain drain of programmers. Another brain drain pattern: talented young programmers turn away after their first half finished Open Source project for a real job. Whether this was considered or not, I can imagine a better overall situation but it all boils down to breaking the money barrier. -- Pirmin Braun - IntarS Unternehmenssoftware GmbH - Am Hofbräuhaus 1 - 96450 Coburg +49 2642 40526292 +49 174 9747584 - skype:pirminb www.intars.de p...@intars.de Geschäftsführer: Pirmin Braun, Ralf Engelhardt Registergericht: Amtsgericht Coburg HRB3136 ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] some FLOSS license + commercial: Your thoughts?
Dear Alec Any license has to satisfy two persons' need, your client and you. Presuming you are still building and you are able to isolate the custom stuff, say into aplugin, the strongest protection for Open Source in this scenario will be GPL with exceptions made for the plugins that merely communicate with the framework. This way, your client can keep their custom stuff non-open source, but if they modify the framework, they have to contribute back the changes to the framework. Note that even if they modify the framework, as long as they do not distribute it, they need not give anyone their modification. If they distribute it, then their obligations to provide source code is only to the people they distribute to. However, the recipient can choose to share the framework code with anyone. As for GPL, BSD or MIT, besides your client, another consideration is what you want from the license. Are you OK with someone taking your code private? Please do consider the long term as well as the short term. HTH Best Regards, Cinly * Don't bother with footer please. I don't read them and will not be bounded by them. It cannot be enforced legally anyway. If it can, then remember this: This footer always triumph yours. On 24 September 2013 07:12, Alec Taylor alec.tayl...@gmail.com wrote: I am building a set of generalised libraries and frameworks. Would like to open-source it all; however in the cases where a client wants their custom stuff under a non open-source license; I should have provisions for such a case. So what are my best options? - Currently looking at BSD/MIT and Apache; though have seen LGPL+commercial in many places… Thanks for all suggestions, Alec Taylor ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] some FLOSS license + commercial: Your thoughts?
Alec Taylor scripsit: I am building a set of generalised libraries and frameworks. Would like to open-source it all; however in the cases where a client wants their custom stuff under a non open-source license; I should have provisions for such a case. As long as it's all written by you or your employees, you can issue it under any license you want. In particular, you can grant an open-source license to the public and a proprietary license to customers who prefer one. If your customers want *you* to engage to keep your custom work for them secret, you'll need a lawyer to draw up such a contract for you. So what are my best options? - Currently looking at BSD/MIT and Apache; though have seen LGPL+commercial in many places… Any of those will work. -- Why are well-meaning Westerners so concerned that John Cowan the opening of a Colonel Sanders in Beijing means co...@ccil.org the end of Chinese culture? [...] We have had http://www.ccil.org/~cowan Chinese restaurants in America for over a century, and it hasn't made us Chinese. On the contrary, we obliged the Chinese to invent chop suey.--Marshall Sahlins ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] we need a new license for earning money
A few thoughts, assuming you are open to open source perspectives by asking here ;-) On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 10:17 AM, Pirmin Braun p...@intars.de wrote: currently our IntarS ERP Software is released under GPL. But we want to be able obtain license fees from bigger commercial users. That's not possible with GPL or any other OSI approved license since it is a restriction to free use. It is also not possible under the Open Source Definition. There are ways around this business-wise I will discuss below (disclaimer, I compete in the ERP space too). Since we neither want to dual license nor Open Core we've created a draft expressing our thoughts of a new sort of license. We think it adresses a common issue and differs effectively very little from an OSI compliant license. So I'd like to share our thoughts: Maybe it is possible to add such an extension to the OSI Open Source Definition? Or create a new class of approved liceneses? Or at least coin a name for this sort of license? What's wrong with the term shareware? I realize what you are doing goes a bit beyond what shareware usually does. Here's the draft: // IntarS 7 ERP Framework // Author 1996-2013 Pirmin Braun // all Rights granted to and reserved by IntarS Unternehmenssoftware GmbH // Am Hofbrauhaus 1 - 96450 Coburg - GERMANY // http://www.intars.de i...@intars.de // licensed under IntarS Open Source Commercial License --- IntarS Open Source Commercial License (IOSCL) --- Preamble Short Version: you can think of the IOSCL as the LGPL (tm) with license fees for bigger companies. It gives you all the freedoms, the GPL (tm) is meant for: - the freedom to use the software for any purpose, - the freedom to change the software to suit your needs, - the freedom to share the software with your friends and neighbors, and - the freedom to share the changes you make. But additionally it gives you and us the freedom to earn money based on heavy usage. As professional services are accepted to pay for, framework development is not. Well, I put a significant amount of unpaid time into LedgerSMB framework development. I am sympathetic to this concern. I also think there are better ways around this, and if you take license fees, you end up killing the same community that open source tends to cultivate. So I would urge you not to do this. The first thing is, you need to differentiate those portions of the framework that can be developed through professional services and those parts that cannot. Those that can you do for paying customers. Those that can't you pay for through your development services. The way I have always seen it is that open source is paid up front for new features while software licenses mean paid in arrears. With software license fees, you bear the risk that you won't make the money back on your development. The Open Source idea of community development didn't work for the IntarS ERP framework. Framework development had to happen in spare time and at night and we had to hire professional programmers. I don't think that is the only model. You can: 1. Charge customers to develop new features and 2. Charge customers enough for professional services you can subsidize framework development. In essence I would suggest instead going a sponsored development (and offering to publicly thank sponsors), and making sure you can still subsidize some development off your professional services. I am sure there are other models too. Now, there are some things where the above open source business models really don't work (I am thinking in particular of regulatory compliance matters) and so you can have professional services which offer subscriptions for these areas. While the license fees will be low enough not to hurt bigger companies, they will help paying further framework development. Also the certified IntarS Partners and other creators of derived work will benefit as they now may create their own price list for usage of their branch solutions. With LedgerSMB we went the opposite direction. What we did was build into the system deep integration points. These are likely to eventually raise questions regarding what constitutes derivation under the GPL but we have adopted a line of use our API, choose your license, but use our code, and use our license. We have in essence two separate components, a database-level object model and an application-space object model. These communicate over a db bridge inspired by web services. Over time the application model will rely more on the db model than it does. Our approach has been to license db bridges in other languages (and soon in the language we use too) under the PostgreSQL or 2-clause BSD licenses. This is specifically intended to allow proprietary add-ons written in any number of licenses outside our licensing control. In part we hope that the db bridges will be useful for other application designers unrelated to
Re: [License-discuss] we need a new license for earning money
On Fri, Sep 20, 2013 at 3:04 PM, Pirmin Braun p...@intars.de wrote: Am Fri, 20 Sep 2013 15:22:41 -0400 schrieb John Cowan co...@mercury.ccil.org : Pirmin Braun scripsit: So I'd like to share our thoughts: Maybe it is possible to add such an extension to the OSI Open Source Definition? Or create a new class of approved liceneses? Not gonna happen. We believe very strongly in non-discrimination among licensees, and to disadvantage the millionaire is as unethical as to disadvantage the poor. we're in the business world: The millionaire companies feel better to pay for licences. It's not a disadvantage. They want to see, there is someone taking care of the software they're using who makes a living from this money. There are about 60 years of programming in IntarS (started at 1996) and it's easier to just say price than trying to explain how this development was financed. Because either there were non-paid just-for-fun programmers at work who may turn away at any time or the professional services have to pay the bills. Taking license fees just gives more credibility and trust. The question in my mind is that of ownership. If you license the software to someone, you control what they can do with it. You own the software they use (in the sense of having the right to control it). If you cede that ownership by degrees (GPL cedes some, BSD cedes more, etc) the companies take on more of that ownership. In essence, I see software licenses as folks paying for the privilege of being told what they cannot do with the software. If they need to give you credibility and trust, charge them for a support account, a warranty, or the like. Then have you ever thought about the allowed means of making money from Open Source? Like selling copies? Strictly speaking, this is also a discrimination: Someone having a slow internet connection or little knowledge of how to build a product from the sources and having no friends that can help is forced to pay money. Same with professional services: companies not having the IT stuff to do it inhouse are discriminated! They have to hire Open Source contractors to help them. Selling copies have never been significant money makers for my business. Also IME, the companies with IT staff tend to pay for more services (because they know what they need!) than those who don't, and they often have more complex needs. Best Wishes, Chris Travers -- Pirmin Braun - IntarS Unternehmenssoftware GmbH - Am Hofbräuhaus 1 - 96450 Coburg +49 2642 40526292 +49 174 9747584 - skype:pirminb www.intars.de p...@intars.de Geschäftsführer: Pirmin Braun, Ralf Engelhardt Registergericht: Amtsgericht Coburg HRB3136 ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
Re: [License-discuss] we need a new license for earning money
On Tue, Sep 24, 2013 at 5:45 AM, Pirmin Braun p...@intars.de wrote: Am Tue, 24 Sep 2013 12:07:01 +0100 schrieb Cinly Ooi c...@theiet.org : If it was only my situation, I wouldn't have asked. But I'm also an Open Source Evangelist and FSFE member and have detected this common pattern with Open Source projects becoming mature, usable, successful. They don't fit into the Open Source world any longer and start escaping into dual licensing, Open Core, closed source forks or only older versions remain free. Not only the projects are lost but there is also a brain drain of programmers. Another brain drain pattern: talented young programmers turn away after their first half finished Open Source project for a real job. Whether this was considered or not, I can imagine a better overall situation but it all boils down to breaking the money barrier. This isn't a problem with open source. It is a problem with corporate control. If you have a single-vendor solution controlled by a single company, yes, this is a trend. On the other hand if you have a multi-vendor solution (PostgreSQL, Apache) the dynamic is very different. Note these are under more permissive licenses that allow proprietary forks. I can talk more about PostgreSQL than the others. PostgreSQL has always had proprietary forks which are a little ahead of the standard version in some ways or another. The thing is, they largely serve as a means of pointing the direction for future development. There used to be Mammoth PostgreSQL which offered replication as standard. Then PostgreSQL got replication and the mammoth went extinct. Then there was Green Plum but they went their own way and we got Postgres-XC. And so forth. PostgreSQL continues to develop quickly in part through competition with the proprietary forks. This is one of the things we tried hard to replicate in LedgerSMB. Best Wishes, Chris Travers ___ License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@opensource.org http://projects.opensource.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss
