Licenses

[calsmurf2904]

Hello,

I'm currently looking into software licenses (like GPL, LGPL, MIT, ZLIB etc.) but I've been wondering.
Is there a license that allows free for non-commercial use AND payment for commercial use without having 2 licenses?
More like a mix of GPL and the WTFPL license.

If anybody could assist me on this, thanks in advance.

Calsmurf2904

[jacmoe]

You can't.
Not an open source license.
You can restrict freedom using OSI approved licenses, AFAIK.
With emphasis on 'AFAIK'.

[calsmurf2904]

So:
LGPL for non-commercial use,
Commercial (paid) license for commercial use?

mmm, this means dual-licensing, which would overcomplicate stuff.
Are you sure there its not possible?

[CABAListic]

Err, I don't see what you want. If you want payment for commercial use, then you are technically offering them different terms, so you have two different cases, really. Your license would need to address both cases, anyway, so why not split it cleanly?

BTW, LGPL does not forbid commercial usage.

[calsmurf2904]

Alright, so it would be:
GPL (I think?) for non-commercial use
and
Commercial License for (ofcourse) commercial use?

However, isn't GPL a bit too restrictive, don't get me wrong, I don't want to have it free for commercial use. But when using it for free then I would like to remove all restrictions if possible. Except the free-for-non-commercial-use-only restriction ofcourse.

[CABAListic]

GPL does not forbid commercial use, either. It just imposes restrictions which most commercial projects find unbearable. You should probably look along the lines of a Creative Commons noncommercial license or something like that.

[calsmurf2904]

so something like CC-by-nc?

Is there also a license like that one except that you need to release patches when you patch it. (Like LGPL, except only for non-commercial use).
Or does the CC-by-nc license already imply that? if not can I simply add this to the waiver so that it has to be done?

[jacmoe]

I think you need to consider it.
For most purposes - and in most other projects with dual-licensing - GPL with the option of buying a commercial license is the way to go.
CC-by-nc is not a suited license for software - they say so themselves, the CC guys.
And it's not approved.

Anyway: you can't force anyone to contribute back.
The only way of avoiding the issue is to not go open source at all, but offer a source license.
Use the clever pimpl idiom and headers and libs - if people want the source, they sign an NDA and get it after paying you money.

I'd choose GPL / Commercial..

[calsmurf2904]

Alright, Thanks for the help
I think I'll go with GPL and Commercial License. I don't want to have them to pay for the source since I know how hard it is to debug certain stuff without the source. (See NVIDIA PhysX for example). I do want them to pay if the want to get paid for it. (So going commercial). I think GPL and Commercial License is the way to go then.

[reptor]

You can write a license by yourself. You don't have to use an existing text.



Also something to consider. In each legislative region, like in a country, if there is a conflict between your license text and the local law then the local law wins. Some who did their homework, like Microsoft, have actually written a notice about this into their End-User License Agreements.

Some others claim their license is always completely valid everywhere which is not true. For example, some licenses say I am not allowed to reverse-engineer the software. But, guess what, according to the laws of my country, I can - there are some conditions as to when it can be done and what I can do with the findings of my work, but the point is it is not always illegal as the licenses would want me to believe.

A consequence of this could be that if you do not accept laws of some country then you do not distribute your software to that country at all

Not a big issue to me but it's one of my pet subjects, maybe because I see so many licenses completely disrespecting the fact that there are different laws in different countries and I only have those of my own country to obey when I am in my country

[calsmurf2904]

Also something to consider. In each legislative region, like in a country, if there is a conflict between your license text and the local law then the local law wins. Some who did their homework, like Microsoft, have actually written a notice about this into their End-User License Agreements.

So they added an exception to the license allowing them to release it in those countrys?
Aren't the licenses globally adopted?

[jacmoe]

No.
It's just the way the law works.

[reptor]

Also something to consider. In each legislative region, like in a country, if there is a conflict between your license text and the local law then the local law wins. Some who did their homework, like Microsoft, have actually written a notice about this into their End-User License Agreements.

So they added an exception to the license allowing them to release it in those countrys?

There is a notice that if there is a conflict with the local laws of the user then the local law is in effect for the user which of course makes sense - one must obey the laws of his or her country before considering anything else. Then they mention also that the rest of their license is still valid even though a part of it is invalid in the user's country. I don't remember the exact quotes now but that's basically what they are saying.

We have a basic rule in Finland that if a "contract" (a software license is a sort of a contract) tries to enforce something illegal on us then that contract automatically becomes invalid without any notice. This rule in fact says that if there is anything illegal in a contract then the whole contract is invalid. Of course if there is a dispute then people would go to court to fight it out but this is a rule of thumb that if you get me to agree to a contract which says something illegal then I can completely ignore that contract and I even don't have to tell you that the contract is invalid to make it invalid So one contracting party can know the contract is invalid and not say anything and the other contracting party can keep happily believing the contract is valid. This is entirely possible and I am sure this happens.

"Something illegal" can be "trying to take rights away from us which our own laws grant us" and this is what was in my mind when I first posted in this thread because that's what I have seen many software licenses try to do, they try to tell me that I cannot do something at all when in fact my local legislation gives me rights to do that (under some conditions, but the point is the license is wrong as it tries to tell me I am never allowed to do it (reverse-engineering, as an example).


Agreements like "The Berne Convention" filter down to us by our local governments creating laws for us which practically tell us to obey the Berne Convention. It is not enough for a country to sign up to such an agreement - they also must create laws to tell everyone in the country to do practically the same what the agreement says. This is how things work and there is no such thing as an "international agreement" which will directly tell us to do something - it has to be in our own laws and if it isn't we can ignore it if we wish to do so.

Aren't the licenses globally adopted?

No... it would be like if you would write some text there all by yourself at home and then tell me it is a law I need to obey. Which is bullshit of course. It is the same with companies who publish games - they can't just write some text up and expect it to be legally enforceable on me in my country. I am sure many of them expect so but they may not have thought about it very well. Of course if there is never a dispute about anything then they will likely never find out about their license being wrong in some country.

Well, "adopted", you could say that a license is globally "adopted" into general use, for example the GPL for open-source projects, but it does not mean that it is completely valid in every individual country. It needs to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

I like to talk about this subject because I think many people in software development seem not to be aware of it and imagine if you have a license then it's always valid everywhere which just cannot be true.


I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice I am just reminding you that you can't just write a license the way you like it and expect it to be a legal license (contract) everywhere. It may be OK to you that your license would not be valid in every country but that is something you need to consider - I am pretty sure for example many software companies in the USA have considered this and decided if a problem occurs then they will deal with it the best they can. It's not really possible to know every law affecting software in every country so a compromise is practical.

[calsmurf2904]

Thanks Reptor
Licenses give me a head-ache already
Anyway, I guess I'll go for the GPL license with a commercial license (so dual licensing).
Adding a notice to both that some rules specified in the licenses might not apply to every country because of their law. (etc.)

[reptor]

I think if you want to have that in their then look from a Microsoft EULA how they do it. Or somebody else "big" who has done it. Should not go terribly wrong, they must have investigated it a lot.