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Honest question (I am totally ignorant about these things): If you did this, would you be able to accept patches from the community on the open core? Or would r

Honest question (I am totally ignorant about these things): If you did this, would you be able to accept patches from the community on the open core? Or would releasing your proprietary code violate the GPL of the coder who sent the patch?

orangeshark 5y ago
You usually require them to assign copyright back to you so you can still use it in your proprietary version.
- jacobmartin 5y ago
  Ah, makes sense. Thanks!
heavyset_go 5y ago
You'd only accept contributions under a CLA that assigns copyright to you or your company, allowing you to distribute the code and its derivatives in any manner, and under any license, you want.
- jacobmartin 5y ago
  That makes sense. Thanks!
- hakre 5y ago
  Only to yourself with all rights reserved to yourself, too. You then transfer the license to an oversea entity that then licenses back to your majority owned company. This is the professional business with software licenses as there is no physical good to ship, it is in principle a good way to transfer money accepted as a common business transaction (paying licensing fees), supported by tax laws for international trade (e.g. often various tax exemptions).
vegetablepotpie 5y ago
I would say that it depends on how the core and addons are attached and how the core is licensed. If the core is a library, and licensed under LGPL, the proprietary add ons can dynamically link to it without issue. You could take community contributions. This would not be true if the library was GPL. Anything that links to GPL has to be GPL compatible (make source code available). If the proprietary addons are libraries and the core links to the addons, the users could violate the GPL when they link to them, unless you as the original author of the core, specifically enumerate the addons in the license you distribute to them. You would not be able to take community contributions in this case. If the core communicates to the addons without adding the addons to its assessable region, such as talking over pipes or sockets, you would have no licensing issues even if the core is GPL and has taken community contributions.
- J-Kuhn 5y ago
  You can also ask for joint copyright ownership for community patches. In this case, you can choose the license for your own binary distribution. And you can change the license if/when it becomes necessary.
  - vegetablepotpie 5y ago
    I’m not familiar with how that works. Would you ask contributors to give you a traditional copyright license to their code (world wide, royalty free, non-expiring, right to redistribute, modify and sub license)?

orangeshark 5y ago

You usually require them to assign copyright back to you so you can still use it in your proprietary version.

jacobmartin 5y ago
Ah, makes sense. Thanks!

heavyset_go 5y ago

You'd only accept contributions under a CLA that assigns copyright to you or your company, allowing you to distribute the code and its derivatives in any manner, and under any license, you want.

jacobmartin 5y ago
That makes sense. Thanks!
hakre 5y ago
Only to yourself with all rights reserved to yourself, too. You then transfer the license to an oversea entity that then licenses back to your majority owned company. This is the professional business with software licenses as there is no physical good to ship, it is in principle a good way to transfer money accepted as a common business transaction (paying licensing fees), supported by tax laws for international trade (e.g. often various tax exemptions).

vegetablepotpie 5y ago

I would say that it depends on how the core and addons are attached and how the core is licensed. If the core is a library, and licensed under LGPL, the proprietary add ons can dynamically link to it without issue. You could take community contributions. This would not be true if the library was GPL. Anything that links to GPL has to be GPL compatible (make source code available). If the proprietary addons are libraries and the core links to the addons, the users could violate the GPL when they link to them, unless you as the original author of the core, specifically enumerate the addons in the license you distribute to them. You would not be able to take community contributions in this case. If the core communicates to the addons without adding the addons to its assessable region, such as talking over pipes or sockets, you would have no licensing issues even if the core is GPL and has taken community contributions.

J-Kuhn 5y ago
You can also ask for joint copyright ownership for community patches. In this case, you can choose the license for your own binary distribution. And you can change the license if/when it becomes necessary.
- vegetablepotpie 5y ago
  I’m not familiar with how that works. Would you ask contributors to give you a traditional copyright license to their code (world wide, royalty free, non-expiring, right to redistribute, modify and sub license)?