3 ms·

You cannot pay rent with 3rd party code contributions.

mikorym 7y ago
The point he is making is that FOSS as an idea is independent from OP's post and thus not necessarily influenced by it.
dspillett 7y ago
But you might be able to pay rent with it if those not wanting to feed back their work wanted the code enough to negotiate a paid licence under other terms. That can be messy for projects with many past maintainers where the licence options at the time of individual contributions did not explicitly allow this or arbitrary relicensing, but in this case (single current maintainer, other contributions made under a licence that allows him to do this) it needn't be.
- javajosh 7y ago
  I'm not sure how that works, legally. If I understand you, you're suggesting that you can GPL your work to create leverage in a future negotiation with a potential user who wants to modify it privately and/or integrate it into proprietary software. Can you un-GPL your work for a single entity? Doesn't that mean that you yourself are violating the GPL? I'm legitimately asking, not being rhetorical.
  - beering 7y ago
    If you're the sole author of the code (or own the copyright or have the ability to relicense), then you can. It's not "un-GPL"ing the code because whatever you GPL'd will continue to be available under the GPL forever. But you can say, hey, I'm ALSO releasing this code under a separate commercial license that costs $X dollars to get. You can't infringe on your own copyright!
    - javajosh 7y ago
      Well, that's pretty cool actually. I was unaware that was an option, and I'm pretty sure that many other people don't know that's an option either! It seems eminently fair to ask for money from people who are making money from your thing (and if they aren't, to not ask for anything).
cr0sh 7y ago
No, you can't. That is true. But if my choice is between zero dollars, and 100 lines of code, I'll take the code, because at least it is something.

The point he is making is that FOSS as an idea is independent from OP's post and thus not necessarily influenced by it.

But you might be able to pay rent with it if those not wanting to feed back their work wanted the code enough to negotiate a paid licence under other terms. That can be messy for projects with many past maintainers where the licence options at the time of individual contributions did not explicitly allow this or arbitrary relicensing, but in this case (single current maintainer, other contributions made under a licence that allows him to do this) it needn't be.

javajosh 7y ago
I'm not sure how that works, legally. If I understand you, you're suggesting that you can GPL your work to create leverage in a future negotiation with a potential user who wants to modify it privately and/or integrate it into proprietary software. Can you un-GPL your work for a single entity? Doesn't that mean that you yourself are violating the GPL? I'm legitimately asking, not being rhetorical.
- beering 7y ago
  If you're the sole author of the code (or own the copyright or have the ability to relicense), then you can. It's not "un-GPL"ing the code because whatever you GPL'd will continue to be available under the GPL forever. But you can say, hey, I'm ALSO releasing this code under a separate commercial license that costs $X dollars to get. You can't infringe on your own copyright!
  - javajosh 7y ago
    Well, that's pretty cool actually. I was unaware that was an option, and I'm pretty sure that many other people don't know that's an option either! It seems eminently fair to ask for money from people who are making money from your thing (and if they aren't, to not ask for anything).

cr0sh 7y ago

No, you can't. That is true. But if my choice is between zero dollars, and 100 lines of code, I'll take the code, because at least it is something.