5 ms·
As far as I know the GPL does not allow trial periods and asking for money later on, but feel free to correct me. That's why elementary cannot do such a thing.
by embik 10y ago
As far as I know the GPL does not allow trial periods and asking for money later on, but feel free to correct me. That's why elementary cannot do such a thing.
- teddyh 10y agoIf Elementary wants to alter some program to add a time bomb, the GPL cannot stop them. The GPL only ensures that the user can take the time bomb out (either by themselves or by following instructions on the internet, or by hiring somebody to do it).
- acomar 10y agoGPL just requires source to be available to anyone who receives the binary. It has to be available on request. You can ask them to pay for the cost of postage to ship it to them.
- toyg 10y agoHell, you can ask them to pay anything, like RedHat does, regardless of costs. It's perfectly legal and GPL-compliant. You just have to provide sources.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- paulryanrogers 10y agoGPL doesn't prohibit payment. It just implicitly undercuts payment because the first to pay can redistribute for less or nothing. Yet some projects still squeak out some money: Synergy, DOSBox Turbo, etc.
- mohanmcgeek 10y agoNo. Gpl has no such thing. But you'll have to provide the source code with your software, so I'll just modify the source to give myself infinite trial. _that's why it won't work_
- mikeash 10y agoIt'll work, it just won't get quite as many conversions as it might otherwise. The same principle applies to closed-source software, after all: you have to provide the binary, so I'll just modify the binary to give myself an infinite trial. This is entirely doable, but enough people still pay to make it a viable business in many cases.
- Damogran6 10y agoThe number of people that would bother to do that is relatively small. If it's a good product, and reasonably priced, people would much rather just pay to have it. (See music streaming.)
- pmontra 10y agoThe GPL and payment are orthogonal. They could GPL a piece of software that stops working after 30 days if you don't pay. You decide if to compile out the code that checks for the payment (and possibly distribute your version) or pay them those money.
- holri 10y agoIf it stops working it violates the GPL: Freedom 0: "The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose."
- kybernetyk 10y agoNo, I didn't mean a trial version. I just suggested they should ask for a donation once people actually had the chance to find out if they'd consider donating worth it.