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> open source and free for non-commercial, require a donation if it is used in a commercial product Every serious definition of 'open source' or 'free software

> open source and free for non-commercial, require a donation if it is used in a commercial product Every serious definition of 'open source' or 'free software' says that you can't discriminate by field of endeavour - if you have one set of rules for commercial use and one for non-commercial use, it's not really open source. And the nature of donations is that you can't require them. That's not to say that you can't build a business model around open source software. You can charge for pre-built binaries, you can charge for exceptions to the GPL license to build proprietary software with it (this is what Qt used to do), or you can charge for services associated with the code (e.g. running a hosted service). You can even technically charge for the code itself, though since anyone who buys it can resell it or give it away, that sounds precarious.

teamhappy 12y ago
Nope. We call it Free and Open Source Software for a reason. Open Source means the code is open (i.e., you can study it), Free means it's licensed under a Free Software license (it doesn't necessarily mean free of charge). People usually omit the "Free and" part when they talk about FOSS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software // Anybody want to tell me why you vote me down? Am I wrong?
- davidw 12y ago
  For practical purposes, free and open source software are the same things with the same licenses. They're just different philosophies and goals.
  - sukilot 12y ago
    Does Open Source guarantee the right to publish derivative source?
    - davidw 12y ago
      Yes, look up the definition: http://opensource.org/osd-annotated http://opensource.org/osd-annotated
- TillE 12y ago
  Almost nobody would call merely viewable source "open source". Certainly not the OSI.
  - teamhappy 12y ago
    I see. I call that free software, because "having access to the source code" is part of free software licenses. The kind of "open source" I was talking about is source code that is released under a non-free software license. What do we call that? --- @alexvoda "it's not really open source" is the part I tried to contradict. I may have been wrong though.
    - JoshTriplett 12y ago
      > The kind of "open source" I was talking about is source code that is released under a non-free software license. What do we call that? "obnoxious". More seriously, typically something like "look but don't touch", or "proprietary with source available", or "source available under a restrictive license". Microsoft used to call it "shared source", and that term still has those connotations too. Definitely not "open source", though; that means more than just "has source available".
      - teamhappy 12y ago
        It's common practice in the game industry to license/pay for access to the source code. Whether you end up changing it or not is up to you, but at least you have a choice. This might not be true for Microsoft's "public" source code. I don't know. It looks like we're talking about two very different domains. The Unreal Engine is an example for this kind of business model on a large scale. KoboldTouch (used to be?) an example for the same on a very, very small scale (less than 5 people). I really don't see anything "obnoxious" about it.
        JoshTriplett 12y ago
        > It's common practice in the game industry to license/pay for access to the source code. Whether you end up changing it or not is up to you, but at least you have a choice. This might not be true for Microsoft's "public" source code. I don't know. It looks like we're talking about two very different domains. Yeah, that's a very different case. It's indeed moderately common for proprietary software frameworks/engines to include source, so that their paying customers can modify and redistribute, but cannot redistribute in source form (modified or otherwise). That's not any more obnoxious than any other kind of proprietary software distribution, and I wouldn't call it "look but don't touch", though it certainly isn't open source or free software. The case I'm talking about is software with publically available source, but under a restrictive license that doesn't satisfy the OSI or FSF or DFSG definitions. For instance, many random projects on github that don't bother applying a license, or rar (the archive format implementation), or tarsnap, or the extremely obnoxious JSON license.
- alexvoda 12y ago
  Nope what? You didn't actually contradict anything he said.
- jumpwah 12y ago
  You are about the open source part: http://opensource.org/osd http://opensource.org/osd. The 'Naming' section of your link references the osd. Calling it just one or the other is enough though. Being "under a Free Software license" by definition means "the code is open (i.e. you can study it), so no need to say "and Open Source". I do however prefer calling it free software over open source as I find the free software definition simpler and than the osd. And also because the term open source seems to place importance on the code being 'open' instead of 'libre', which you'll here rms talking about everytime someone says open source. "Free software" has issues as well as a term, since free can obviously mean two things, gratis or libre. However, once the reader/listener has understood the difference between free of charge software and software that preserves your freedom to study, modify and redistribute it, I think open source is the more problematic term as it can more easily cause confusion as demonstrated by your comment (where you think open source means that the code just has to be 'open').
azernik 12y ago
I think parent was badly worded/thought out, but points to a real strategy. He said "charge for commercial use", which is definitely illegal, but what a lot of projects do is dual-license open source and proprietary. If you're a non-commercial project, you'll usually just use the open source version; if you're commercial, you'll want to be able to both link the project into a proprietary codebase and get support guarantees, so you pay for the proprietary license.
- kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
  It is not "definitely illegal" to set license terms to whatever one wishes including restricting commercial use. The GPL hinges upon copyright to enforce it's provisions. Copying privileges are revoked for people who violate the license. This is a legal "hack" to get around the need to establish a contract or exchange funds. The same sort of rules can be applied for any other criteria such as the type of user. If I want to prohibit blue-eyed people from using my software I am free to do so. Dual licensing isn't a requirement to do this.
- xgbi 12y ago
  This is exactly what we ( http://linphone.org http://linphone.org ) do: we have a GPLV2 license that's used in many many open source projects, and we have a specific license for commercial projects, for which we provide support and ability to not disclose the sources that our clients might modify. This kind of way to function give enough money to employ 10 people, and also secured a lot of new developments (encryption, video, etc.). Disclaimer: I'm just an employee, not the founder. I would advise him to switch to that kind of licensing, if he wishes to. There's no reason he shouldn't be able to live through his work.
- alexvoda 12y ago
  One problem with that strategy is it forces you to use a licence with some sort of restriction (like copyleft) to make dual-licensing useful. You can of course dual-license a BSD or MIT licensed project but no one would use the "dual" part of the dual-license since the copyfree license allows them to do everything they need. If you do this, the problem with dual-licensing a copyleft project is as follows: -The copyleft license allows use in other projects with the same copyleft license -The "dual" part allows use in proprietary licensed project (the stated enemy of the copyleft license) -The ones left out are projects that use other copyleft licenses and copyfree licenses. In my opinion dual-licensing copyleft licensed projects is a mockery of the purpose of copyleft. All this is however irrelevant to the discussion about funding core FLOSS software. It doesn't matter the license, the challenges to funding such a project are the same.
jakejake 12y ago
Your mention of exceptions to the GPL is probably what the OP was talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing It might be a little tricky in the case of GPG since it is really a GPL port of the commercial PGP software. So a major reason for it's original existence is that it is GPL code.
- dd9jn 12y ago
  Gpg is not a port of some PGP version but an implementation of rfc4880 and earlier open standards. I actually took great care not to look at any "open source" PGP code. The reasons why dual-licensing does not work is that I assigned the copyright to the FSF in 1998 and when I terminated that contract 2 years ago too many other other hackers have code in it or assigned it to the FSF. Thus there is no way for anyone to switch to a dual-license.

teamhappy 12y ago

Nope. We call it Free and Open Source Software for a reason. Open Source means the code is open (i.e., you can study it), Free means it's licensed under a Free Software license (it doesn't necessarily mean free of charge). People usually omit the "Free and" part when they talk about FOSS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software // Anybody want to tell me why you vote me down? Am I wrong?

davidw 12y ago
For practical purposes, free and open source software are the same things with the same licenses. They're just different philosophies and goals.
- sukilot 12y ago
  Does Open Source guarantee the right to publish derivative source?
  - davidw 12y ago
    Yes, look up the definition: http://opensource.org/osd-annotated http://opensource.org/osd-annotated
TillE 12y ago
Almost nobody would call merely viewable source "open source". Certainly not the OSI.
- teamhappy 12y ago
  I see. I call that free software, because "having access to the source code" is part of free software licenses. The kind of "open source" I was talking about is source code that is released under a non-free software license. What do we call that? --- @alexvoda "it's not really open source" is the part I tried to contradict. I may have been wrong though.
  - JoshTriplett 12y ago
    > The kind of "open source" I was talking about is source code that is released under a non-free software license. What do we call that? "obnoxious". More seriously, typically something like "look but don't touch", or "proprietary with source available", or "source available under a restrictive license". Microsoft used to call it "shared source", and that term still has those connotations too. Definitely not "open source", though; that means more than just "has source available".
    - teamhappy 12y ago
      It's common practice in the game industry to license/pay for access to the source code. Whether you end up changing it or not is up to you, but at least you have a choice. This might not be true for Microsoft's "public" source code. I don't know. It looks like we're talking about two very different domains. The Unreal Engine is an example for this kind of business model on a large scale. KoboldTouch (used to be?) an example for the same on a very, very small scale (less than 5 people). I really don't see anything "obnoxious" about it.
      - JoshTriplett 12y ago
        > It's common practice in the game industry to license/pay for access to the source code. Whether you end up changing it or not is up to you, but at least you have a choice. This might not be true for Microsoft's "public" source code. I don't know. It looks like we're talking about two very different domains. Yeah, that's a very different case. It's indeed moderately common for proprietary software frameworks/engines to include source, so that their paying customers can modify and redistribute, but cannot redistribute in source form (modified or otherwise). That's not any more obnoxious than any other kind of proprietary software distribution, and I wouldn't call it "look but don't touch", though it certainly isn't open source or free software. The case I'm talking about is software with publically available source, but under a restrictive license that doesn't satisfy the OSI or FSF or DFSG definitions. For instance, many random projects on github that don't bother applying a license, or rar (the archive format implementation), or tarsnap, or the extremely obnoxious JSON license.
alexvoda 12y ago
Nope what? You didn't actually contradict anything he said.
jumpwah 12y ago
You are about the open source part: http://opensource.org/osd http://opensource.org/osd. The 'Naming' section of your link references the osd. Calling it just one or the other is enough though. Being "under a Free Software license" by definition means "the code is open (i.e. you can study it), so no need to say "and Open Source". I do however prefer calling it free software over open source as I find the free software definition simpler and than the osd. And also because the term open source seems to place importance on the code being 'open' instead of 'libre', which you'll here rms talking about everytime someone says open source. "Free software" has issues as well as a term, since free can obviously mean two things, gratis or libre. However, once the reader/listener has understood the difference between free of charge software and software that preserves your freedom to study, modify and redistribute it, I think open source is the more problematic term as it can more easily cause confusion as demonstrated by your comment (where you think open source means that the code just has to be 'open').

azernik 12y ago

I think parent was badly worded/thought out, but points to a real strategy. He said "charge for commercial use", which is definitely illegal, but what a lot of projects do is dual-license open source and proprietary. If you're a non-commercial project, you'll usually just use the open source version; if you're commercial, you'll want to be able to both link the project into a proprietary codebase and get support guarantees, so you pay for the proprietary license.

kevin_thibedeau 12y ago
It is not "definitely illegal" to set license terms to whatever one wishes including restricting commercial use. The GPL hinges upon copyright to enforce it's provisions. Copying privileges are revoked for people who violate the license. This is a legal "hack" to get around the need to establish a contract or exchange funds. The same sort of rules can be applied for any other criteria such as the type of user. If I want to prohibit blue-eyed people from using my software I am free to do so. Dual licensing isn't a requirement to do this.
xgbi 12y ago
This is exactly what we ( http://linphone.org http://linphone.org ) do: we have a GPLV2 license that's used in many many open source projects, and we have a specific license for commercial projects, for which we provide support and ability to not disclose the sources that our clients might modify. This kind of way to function give enough money to employ 10 people, and also secured a lot of new developments (encryption, video, etc.). Disclaimer: I'm just an employee, not the founder. I would advise him to switch to that kind of licensing, if he wishes to. There's no reason he shouldn't be able to live through his work.
alexvoda 12y ago
One problem with that strategy is it forces you to use a licence with some sort of restriction (like copyleft) to make dual-licensing useful. You can of course dual-license a BSD or MIT licensed project but no one would use the "dual" part of the dual-license since the copyfree license allows them to do everything they need. If you do this, the problem with dual-licensing a copyleft project is as follows: -The copyleft license allows use in other projects with the same copyleft license -The "dual" part allows use in proprietary licensed project (the stated enemy of the copyleft license) -The ones left out are projects that use other copyleft licenses and copyfree licenses. In my opinion dual-licensing copyleft licensed projects is a mockery of the purpose of copyleft. All this is however irrelevant to the discussion about funding core FLOSS software. It doesn't matter the license, the challenges to funding such a project are the same.

jakejake 12y ago

Your mention of exceptions to the GPL is probably what the OP was talking about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing It might be a little tricky in the case of GPG since it is really a GPL port of the commercial PGP software. So a major reason for it's original existence is that it is GPL code.

dd9jn 12y ago
Gpg is not a port of some PGP version but an implementation of rfc4880 and earlier open standards. I actually took great care not to look at any "open source" PGP code. The reasons why dual-licensing does not work is that I assigned the copyright to the FSF in 1998 and when I terminated that contract 2 years ago too many other other hackers have code in it or assigned it to the FSF. Thus there is no way for anyone to switch to a dual-license.