4 ms·
Forgive me for a naive question but how do external contributions to the AGPL code find their way back to the commercially licenced code? Are all contributions
by Lio 6y ago
Forgive me for a naive question but how do external contributions to the AGPL code find their way back to the commercially licenced code?
Are all contributions to the "original" pre-licenced source? If so is there some extra legalese to ensure that the changes will always end up in the AGPL source too?
I know of many successful projects using dual licencing so it must work, I'm just wondering how on a legal front.
- qiqitori 6y agoI don't understand all of your questions, but the proprietary part of the "dual license" can be anything the copyright holder wants. Qt is probably the most famous dual-license software. Check https://www.qt.io/pricing https://www.qt.io/pricing for some but not all details. It looks like this is subscription-based, so I'm guessing you can update for the length of your subscription. Perhaps you're asking whether you're allowed to use development patches written by external people that you'd maybe find in github discussions etc.? If you need that, you will probably have to negotiate for that option yourself. If that is your question, then that isn't really a naive question at all.
- trinovantes 6y agoThe contributor would need to either: - Agree to a Contributor License Agreement that grants the project owner an irrevocable world-wide commercial license (probably missing a few adjectives but you get the idea) - Transfer the copyright - Release to public domain
- bregma 6y agoOutbound licenses (say, the GPL or proprietary) and inbound license for contributions are orthogonal. If you intend to dual license outbound, you need to clarify that in your inbound CLA.