3 ms·
You can already do this by releasing a new version of the software at 3 years under a new license. And the new version can be identical to the old.
by TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
You can already do this by releasing a new version of the software at 3 years under a new license. And the new version can be identical to the old.
- cma 4y agoI think the point is people relying on your system now have the code and have a strong guarantee that it will be open for redistribution after the deadline. Just waiting on you to free it, even if there was a promised (but not in the license) deadline to do so is a lot legally shakier, you'd have to pursue it under promissory estoppel.
- manholio 4y agoExactly. The time-bombed license would grant you from the start all of the important freedoms of OSS - freedom to create a derived copy, to compile and understand the program, to freely distribute in source form etc. The only thing it would restrict, for (say) 3 years, is running the software in production without a commercial license, the "free-as-in-beer" freedom. Such a licensed application would change its "main developer" over the years, for example someone would take the 4 years old free-beer version, invest money and time and create a compelling feature set that would make people pay for their version, after 4 more years someone else could do the same to the new feature set etc. So while the initial developer has the freedom to release under multiple-licenses, once they go for "commercial-copy-left" they set in motion a chain that restrict what future developers can do, forcing them to release their work too as commercial-copy-left if they want to have the 3 year binary exclusivity period.