3 ms·

Food for thought: Can we create a license which allows source distribution and collaboration openly and is free to use for individuals and non-profits but compa

by neokya 10y ago

Food for thought: Can we create a license which allows source distribution and collaboration openly and is free to use for individuals and non-profits but companies have to pay if they use it for commercial purpose. It could solve companies vs open source developers situation and give developers financial support. If current open source developers had means to support themselves without full time job, I think that would solve the problem of burnout and depression. I mean just complaining that companies are taking full advantage without giving back is not working. So time to think outside box?

hnchinatime 10y ago
You mean like the GPL?
- neokya 10y ago
  You don't pay anything to use GPL licensed software. So that's the difference.
  - hnchinatime 10y ago
    Right - usually, you have a GPL for normal users and "call us" for commercial use. I thought that was pretty standard.
    - carussell 10y ago
      You can't restrict GPL to non-commercial users.
      - IceyEC 10y ago
        As long as you're willing to relicense your proprietary code as GPL
senko 10y ago
> Can we create a license which allows source distribution and collaboration openly and is free to use for individuals and non-profits but companies have to pay if they use it for commercial purpose. These kinds of licenses have existed for a long time. They're not open source, though.
- neokya 10y ago
  Could you post some references I could read? I am quite interested why they didn't work. As far as I see, popular licenses are: 1. Commercial source 2. Open source - copy left eg. GPL 3. Open source - liberal, do whatever you like eg. MIT which are just handful, when software is eating the world ;)
  - zzalpha 10y ago
    gSOAP has a separate commercial use license. They use a mix of GPLv2 plus a separate license for companies that want to avoid having to relicense their own products under the GPL (as a consequence of the viral nature of GPL vs something like LGPL).
  - molecule 10y ago
    Highcharts.js has a free-for-noncommercial, paid-otherwise license system https://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts https://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts (Not affiliated, but using highcharts for a project @ a non-profit)
  - senko 10y ago
    QT famously had a dual, "non-commercial" and "commercial" licenses, before they switched to LGPL. From wikipedia / web archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20031005175911/http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/noncomm.html https://web.archive.org/web/20031005175911/http://www.trollt...

by neokya 10y ago

hnchinatime 10y ago

You mean like the GPL?

neokya 10y ago
You don't pay anything to use GPL licensed software. So that's the difference.
- hnchinatime 10y ago
  Right - usually, you have a GPL for normal users and "call us" for commercial use. I thought that was pretty standard.
  - carussell 10y ago
    You can't restrict GPL to non-commercial users.
    - IceyEC 10y ago
      As long as you're willing to relicense your proprietary code as GPL

senko 10y ago

> Can we create a license which allows source distribution and collaboration openly and is free to use for individuals and non-profits but companies have to pay if they use it for commercial purpose. These kinds of licenses have existed for a long time. They're not open source, though.

neokya 10y ago
Could you post some references I could read? I am quite interested why they didn't work. As far as I see, popular licenses are: 1. Commercial source 2. Open source - copy left eg. GPL 3. Open source - liberal, do whatever you like eg. MIT which are just handful, when software is eating the world ;)
- zzalpha 10y ago
  gSOAP has a separate commercial use license. They use a mix of GPLv2 plus a separate license for companies that want to avoid having to relicense their own products under the GPL (as a consequence of the viral nature of GPL vs something like LGPL).
- molecule 10y ago
  Highcharts.js has a free-for-noncommercial, paid-otherwise license system https://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts https://shop.highsoft.com/highcharts (Not affiliated, but using highcharts for a project @ a non-profit)
- senko 10y ago
  QT famously had a dual, "non-commercial" and "commercial" licenses, before they switched to LGPL. From wikipedia / web archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20031005175911/http://www.trolltech.com/developer/faqs/noncomm.html https://web.archive.org/web/20031005175911/http://www.trollt...