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Funny thing, “free and open-source” can be paid. You can charge all your customers, it’s just that they are free to redistribute. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/g
by eastbound 2y ago
Funny thing, “free and open-source” can be paid. You can charge all your customers, it’s just that they are free to redistribute. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#DoesTheGPLAllow...
- School-Cotton 2y agoWhich raises the fascinating question of whether it’s legal to sell forks of GPL software under a separate rider agreement that your customers won’t distribute it. I.e. you license it to them under the GPL (which lets them redistribute it), but sign a separate agreement with them in which they promise not to exercise that right. I think that’s probably illegal, but I have definitely heard of companies doing it.
- enriquto 2y agoif it's your software you can simply sell them a proprietary license separately
- School-Cotton 2y agoThat’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about software that people are obligated to distribute under a GPL-compatible license. For example, some random company’s private fork of the Linux kernel.
- pacifika 2y agoInteresting thought experiment and at the same time a terrible real world experiment.
- pabs3 2y agoI think it would depend on the agreement and what you would lose when exercising your GPL rights. For example, with RedHat your subscription for security updates/etc can be terminated.
- eastbound 2y agoThe GPL’s FAQ says no, you can’t give GPL software with an additional NDA. But as usual with licenses: I suppose it was never tested in court.