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A Software License That's Libre But Not Gratis?
duncan bayne writes "My company is developing some software using Ruby. It's proprietary software — decidedly not free-as-in-beer — but I don't want to tie my customers down with the usual prohibitions on reverse engineering, modification, etc. After all, they're licensing the product from us, so I think they should be able to use it as they see fit. Does anyone know of an existing license that could be used in this case? Something that gives the customer the freedom to modify the product as they want, but prohibits them from creating derivative works, or redistributing it in any fashion?"
If it is an interesting question, more than just the poster can benefit from the answer.
Why is it that you couldn't just say "as it is currently understood"? Obviously because it's not understood that way anymore. Copyright today bears very little resemblance to old copyright law. IANAL, but I read a book once.
A basic search will turn up a lot of licenses, how can you be so lazy that you can't type something into Google but are able to submit a Slashdot story?
Why read Slashdot at all? Just Google the news, like I do. Just type "What is <current-date> like?" into Google and let'er rip.
Google provides search results, not dialog.
Slashdot used to provide editing, too, but for a while now that's been more of a nuisance than a feature.
*ducks*