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> The contributors give you the right to license the software how you see fit. Thus, they are not able to get commercial benefit from the software, but you are.
by flukus 8y ago
> The contributors give you the right to license the software how you see fit. Thus, they are not able to get commercial benefit from the software, but you are.
I'm not sure how common dual licensing is these days, but Trolltech used to use to dual license and use contributions to Qt (and KDE) as a recruiting mechanism. So there was no direct commercial gain but for many it resulted in getting something out of the exchange. There's also the resume padding and other indirect gains from contributing.
I'd be more worried that the company could go completely closed source at any point.
- slavik81 8y agoFor example, the contributors to Qt have varied over time, but in past years major contributors have included Digia, KDAB and Blackberry. The first two did so mostly to sell consulting services, and Blackberry did so because it was a major part of their OS. That said, Qt is a bit of a special case. It has a unique history and The Qt Company has an agreement with KDE that there will be ongoing open source releases. https://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation.php https://www.kde.org/community/whatiskde/kdefreeqtfoundation....
- jancsika 8y ago> I'd be more worried that the company could go completely closed source at any point. Which company? I'm talking about developers who default to some license and then continue dev'ing. Those devs can just as easily go closed source at any point with a 3-clause BSD license. In fact that is more likely as anybody can take 3-clause BSD licensed software and make it proprietary.