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Providing a Closed Source License Upon Request?
goruka writes "As a citizen of the open source community, I have written several applications and libraries and released under the BSD license. Because of my license choice, I often run into the situation where a company wants to write software for a closed platform using my code or libraries. Even though there should be no restrictions on usage, companies very often request a different license, citing as a valid reason that the creator of such platform has special terms forbidding 'open source software' in the contracts forced upon the developer. So my question is, has anyone else run into this situation, and are there examples of such licenses that I can provide? (Please keep in mind that I'm not a US resident and I don't have access or resources to afford a lawyer there.)"
This is more on goruka's clients than goruka. Is there really any difference between using relicensed software that is open source and just using open source software?
As long as the software/library is written completely by yourself, you're free to pick any license -- or dual-license it.
You can have your program both licensed under BSD, and also offer the same code/library as closed-source for $xx at the same time, with different conditions and fewer restrictions.
An example of other software that uses the dual-licensing approach is MySQL: for more information see http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/newsletter/2003-11/a0000000220.html
If the terms of the BSD license is not good enough, I'd tell them to piss off.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
The BSD license is already more permissive than any other license, and allows code to be used in proprietary products. There is nothing that a proprietary license would let them do that BSD will not, thus there is no justification for them to subject you to the trouble of researching this just because their policies are written by stupid people.
By making this clear to the people you work with, you could do the public understanding of free software a favor. By bowing to their obscene requests arising from ignorance, you would admit defeat in the face of the FUD coming out of places like Microsoft.
Why not write just a separate version for commercial use? If there is demand for the product, license it and make money yourself. You could modify the terms within reasonable limits useful to your particular situation. I do not understand the aversion of companies not to use open source software except to provide some level of prestige to their own product licensing (and perhaps to limit their their liability if you really screw up). IMHO, as a matter of practice few scrutinize licensing agreements to the degree that it would matter to the the end user that open source code is used unless you are dealing with very large companies that face litigation on a regular basis.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
All I think you need is to make a copy with a statement along the lines of "copyright (c) yyyy me, all rights reserved" as the copyright statement, and a license that reads something like "company X is given a non-exclusive [and transferrable - if you want it transferrable] license to my program zzzz and may use it as it likes". This accomplishes a dual license, and by saying it is non exclusive it means the rest of the world may still have the right to use other copies of the program according to your other license. Companies that have this kind of rectal - cranial inversion problem tend to want transferrable licenses so they can sell their restricted license somewhere if they like, or so if they get bought, the buyer gets the license also. You may want to replace "company x" with "company x or any successors in interest".
This is all approximate wording but would express your intent clearly enough.
"...citing as a valid reason that the creator of such platform has special terms forbidding 'open source software' in the contracts forced upon the developer."
What platforms would or could have such a restriction? Does the iPhone do this? XBox? What are we talking about? Is that even legal?
... that BSD is a closed source license.
Seriously, I suggest you have nothing to do with such idiots on the off chance that it is contagious.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Make them pay. They need to pay for you to get legal advice in every country they wish to run the software AND enough to make this worth your effort. If you are typical, you'll want to sell them annual support contracts too.
I'd start with $20K just to get started.
I wouldn't let them repackage your library, unless you specifically want that. Take a look at the run-time licenses for different closed source libraries and programs that you use.
The more complex the license, the more the lawyer will cost and the more liability you are accepting (no patent infringements, etc). If they want your company to "indemnify them", that needs to cost lots more, perhaps $120K.
Provided you are the only copyright holder of the software, just ask them for a big money chunk, half in advance, and tell they'll even be able to write the license themselves, so there's no doubt that's what they want. Get the license to a lawyer (you already have part of the money) to review there's nothing you dislike and then sign it up.
Easy.
1. Is the software you want to provide all yours, or a mix of peoples' work? If it's a mix, probably it's best to just give up and move on.
2. Ok, it's all yours. Congratulations! Call the person who wants to buy/use it:
2a. Explain how the BSD license works in three sentences or less.
2b. Ask if the sticking point is liability, copyright risk, ownership rights, or other.
2c. Explain you don't have the time, expertise, or money to negotiate a contract, esp given the BSD contract already spells things out.
2d. Point out that 2b issues can be resolved, but it's going to be $10K at a minimum for your time + legal fees.
2e. If they still want to do it, ask for a letter of understanding that lays out the $amount for a non-exclusive right to use/copy/modify, etc.
2f. Run the letter by a lawyer.
2g. Profit.
Just explain to them that they cannot use your software under any conditions, because even if you license it to them under another license it is still available as Open Source software. Changing the license doesn't magically make it unavailable as Open Source. (Then send them a bill for legal fees, and cut me a check. We just saved them a shitload of money)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Maybe I'm expecting too much of clients, but don't they realize that just because you offer one version of your code under a 'closed-source' license doesn't make it substantially different code than the open-source version?
Like I said, I'm probably being naive and thinking clients will be logical. :-o
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
If you like them, go ahead and give them a different license.
However, you are being generous already by offering your code as a BSD license.
If you ask me, I would tell them to not bother you unless they paid you. Your are already offering them a free product!
This software is licensed by (yourname) to (companyname) providing that the following conditions are met:
( any other conditions you want excluding an ability to transfer this license )
( liability disclaimer )
Any other use or transfer of this software is prohibited.
Some companies are concerned about the 'viral' nature of the GPL in particular (some suit read an article about open source that talked about the GPL, and now 'open source' == GPL in his head) There are still many unresolved questions about the GPL in the US, as I'm aware it's only been rarely if ever tested in most jurisdictions in an actual court of law.
Personally, I expect to be compensated for my time and effort. This needn't be in money -- I release free software as a 'gift' for the community because I (and most of us) have received many such gifts in kind (Indeed, almost all the software I use, from the kernel down to the tiniest little nifty script) was a 'gift' to me by other members of the community). A commercial interest, on the other hand, will have to find some other way to compensate me for my work, as they (typically) are not part of the 'community' that has already compensated me for my time. Cash works well.
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow...
Yale makes this available. Edit to suit your needs.
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/standlicagree.html
Ryan Singer
I have to say that I admire people that license their work under bsd, as they effectively let others rip them off. I really hope you get something in return other than a mild thanks.
Have a look at the way H3D from Sensegraphics is licensed:
http://www.sensegraphics.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=6&flypage=shop.flypage_sensegraphics&product_id=17&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=83
It's freely available under the GPL, but can also be purchased if a user wants to use it in a closed source project. It seems to be a good model which all parties benefit from.
If it's good enough for Apple with OS X and who-knows-what-else, why can't it be good enough for this company?
Such stupid policies should be given all possible economic disincentive.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
It depends on what the concern is; if the attachment of an open source license is the concern, a different license can take care of that (assuming that there is an entity that maintains copyright over the entire work). If the public availability of the code is a concern, then no.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
You can roll a closed-source version just for them, and provide them source code under NDA (identical code to the open source version), with a royalty free license to use the code in compiled binaries under their own license terms.
It doesn't matter that you also release an open source project.
The code they received is under NDA, which is not open source conditions.
They want it, let them write it and specify the terms. You just need to read it to make sure that it doesn't limit your ability to continue giving the code away.
I'd let them pick the dollar amount for the licensing fee, too. Tell them to make a proposal, on both fee and terms, and you'll decide if it's acceptable. Odds are they'll offer you terms and money in roughly the same ballpark as what commercial software of the same type would cost.
Be certain that you own 100% of the code though. You don't want to get yourself in trouble for selling someone else's property.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
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If it seems sufficient, tell them to send you a proposed license. If they won't pay tell them they've already got the only license they are going to get.
BTW it is a virtual certainty that they are already using BSD-licensed software.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Big companies fear open source because it's a threat to their intellectual property. If a company uses an open source product, and that product (accidentally and unknowingly of course) infringes on one of their patents, then that company loses the ability to enforce their own patent in the future.
Patents are the "mustard gas" of big companies. Everybody has them, and nobody uses them. But you better have them stockpiled, or somebody might use theirs against you. Some open source licenses rob companies of this line of defense. The hoops one has to jump through at a big company just to use Log4J are maddening.
No, you can't. Not if the wording is that you must not include any Open Source software. Stop and think for a minute. Even if their intent is different, it is the wording that matters in a legal fight. Later down the road, during a lawsuit, they will show the jury the code supplied and code downloaded from the Open Source project and ask if it is the same code. The answer is yes. If the wording were that the deliverable must not be encumbered by Open Source restrictions then you would be correct. As the question was posed to Ask Slashdot today, you are wrong.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I totally agree that if the question was different then the answer might be different too. The person submitting to Ask Slashdot stated the concern was that they must not include Open Source software. Obviously if the concern is different than what he stated then my answer may not apply.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
I don't think it is so clear what the submitter means by 'open source software'.
I mean, apparently the company that contacted him thinks a different license would take care of their concerns.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
... and dual-license your software as a closed-source license. Charge them a license ($10,000), or possibly a royalty ($1 per copy) for usage of your code. Use this money to continue to develop and improve your code. Dollar figures are for example only, you'll have to negotiate that with them.
This is a great way to get paid for developing your Open Source project!
But my company does contractually forbid GPL software being included in any software written for use in our products.
Your problem is easily solved by just modifying the existing license to forbid redistribution of the source code. That would make the license no longer open source.
Exactly my point. The submitter, and conceivably the company that he is dealing with, need to understand what they want, and what the final customer wants, before they can figure out how to acheive that goal. When I posted everyone answered the question they wanted to assume he asked rather than the one he in fact asked. We are both on the same page; we're just speaking slightly different dialects ;-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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This software company for whatever reason does not feel comfortable using the software under the existing licence. It doesn't matter if they are afraid to get sued later or whatnot. Contacting the author of the code and requesting to license it for a commercial endeavor is the right thing to do. They should be commended for their effort, but for some reason most of the comments are chastising them for it. I say good on them.
Are they stupid? As Apple can clearly demonstrate, the BSD license is non-toxic. You should tell them to tell their legal staff to do their homework (and justify their paycheck) to learn the differences between one open source license and another. Simply banning all open source licenses is as stupid as declaring all muslims as terrorists.
If there had been copyrights and patents at the dawn of man, the first and last tool invented would have been the stick; lawyers, lawsuits, and the judges of Eastern Texas would have prevented all derivative works.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
I think they've answered the question for you. If their contract says they can't use open source software, then they are already forbidden from using any already-open code in the project, even if they get a special alternate form of license from you.
Also, if you've ever taken patches from other developers, and didn't have them sign a statement that giving you copyright over the patch, you're probably not legally allowed to relicense their work anyway.
Finally, while I can't speak to your motivations, if I released software under an open source license and someone came along and said, "hey, we need a different license for this, can you help us out?" My response would be, "how much are you paying me for it?"
Some of your arguments against freeware are dubious...
"There's two reasons for being against 'freeware' - many are distributed as closed-source economically unauditable binaries. This leads to difficulties in gaining code security - the government can go after microsoft if they deliberately put a back door in their software, but some dude who published some freeware MP3 player?"
"Auditable binaries"? When was the last time you audited one? Ever read a Microsoft EULA? Neither the government nor anyone else will be going after Microsoft for anything, even if they provided a back door. I seriously doubt anyone can extract ANY remedy beyond possibly a refund of purchase price. Again, read the EULA. Feel the "protection".
"The second is maintenance - they don't want to become dependent upon unmaintainable software. It happens anyways, but if you're paying some company money, generally you get a warranty."
You mean like having the vendor go out of business and you can't get the source code? In 1990's, I managed a large data center. All of our hardware (and most of the software) came from the #2 player in the industry -- Digital Equipment Corporation. DEC was considered "too big to fail" back in those days. We had about $5 million in software licensing alone. Over the course of five years, the vendor that was "too big to fail" proved otherwise. It was a very expensive learning experience. At the time, our thought process was pretty much the same as yours -- and look how well THAT turned out. Those who ignore history will surely repeat it.
As for warranties, back to the EULA once again. Find me a software license that grants any warranty or accepts any liability beyond possibly refunding the purchase price. Just one. Got links to share?
As for copyright, are there any cases where parties who inadvertently possess infringing code have been held liable INSTEAD of the original source of the infringement? Where ARE these cases? Got links?
There have been several cases where large software companies were found guilty of patent or copyright infringement. Have ANY of their customers ever been charged with infringement for merely possessing the infringing software? Again, where are the cases and let's have some links.
You might be tempted to mention SCO vs. Autozone, but that case was about terms of a license. Autozone wound up in court primarily because they bought software from SCO, probably thinking they had the protections that you mention. As far as I know, companies that used Linux exclusively (and never SCO products) have never been sued by SCO. Makes you wonder how valuable this "protection" is.
they see what has been freely given (open source) as valuable to their business, yet they dont want to give something back - so, dont give in - this is exactly the sort of thing open source was invented to prevent - if they're so greedy that they think they dont have to give anything back - well then - they can just live without those freely-given benefits. they're inflexible- why should open licensors have to bend for the sake of their greed??
2cents
jp
The company I work at paid $10k to the author of a GPL program to be able to use its code in our product. If they want to a non-BSD license you should be happy to get a local lawyer write something closed for them and charge them $10kUS for this silliness. You can probably get some money upfront in good faith to cover your costs of writing this up.
My only advice would be to make it for version 2.x or whatever your current major version is so you can both make money off of next version and don't find yourself tied to this agreement forever.
wanted to use a gpl embedded c/c++ web server I wrote. One of the developers sent me an email asking if they could use it. I sent them an email to the extent of "I hereby grant you a license to use EHS (the library) in any way in multi-theft auto."
Either that was good enough for them or they didn't decide to use it afterall.
Very simple solution: dual-licensing.
Make sure copyright in any committed patches is assigned to you, or require public domain, and take the dual license route. If they're adverse to using the BSD license, charge them for the privilege and get a lawyer to write up a software license.
Bit of money for you, a (hopefully) reliable license for all parties, and the organisation gets the code under a non-OSS license. Everyone wins.
Not only is it legal but it is depressingly common in some, ah, less IT savvy industries who have bought the FUD that Open Source software is a security risk - by definition.
Yes, I have had customers insist on buying MS SQL Server licenses because MySQL is Open Source and therefore completely banned in their company (and, I was assured, their industry generally). Not suprisingly, all the major vendors in that industry are MS Gold Partners and all the companies list as major MS accounts. Chicken or Egg?
You need to understand whether their problem is with the license or with the fact that Other People have access to the source code. If it is the former, you can write a new licence and double your fees. If it is the latter you will need to do a significant re-write to meet that requirement (and charge accordingly).
-- Butlerian Jihad NOW!
It can be used as one wants but they also offer a license for the occasions like you've specified. Check out:
http://www.hwaci.com/cgi-bin/license-step1
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Either your client wants to redistribute your code without restrictions, they don't understand licensing or they are persuaded by certain business partners that open source should be avoided.
If the client wants to redistribute, charge as many fees as you possibly can. Base license fee, sold site fee, per host sold fee, per user sold fee, think of anything else fee... Some organizations actually like that. If you have an ethical problem with that, see it as a price they pay for purification of their sorry souls.
Is your client by any chance an MS business partner?
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Some companies will register the software purchased as an asset, and that is the procedure they must follow. They need a contract that specifies the license terms. There also has to be someone they can complain to, or contact to make improvements, or at least explain some code so they can make improvements (if you allow that). This is their procedure for operating business responsibly and that's fine.
Also as someone else mentioned, they might have to have their legal department, or paid external lawyers, analyze carefully an open source contract for viral bits. If they can write the contract for you it is easiest but make sure it contains what is shown below. Or you could use a template on the web.
People here telling you to tell them to buzz off if they won't accept BSD, etc. are not in business, and that's what is scary. Open source programmers need to be able to make a living in order to support doing their open source work, so a company asking you for a commercial liscense for that exact work you have already done is fabulous! Unless you have a job where you are paid to write open source software, this is ideal I should think. More like that and you wouldn't need to do other commercial work, right?
A commercial liscense costs money; no real company buys software for $1. The code may be exactly the same as the free version, it is okay to charge money for it.
All you need to do is make it easy for your client to purchase the a non-exclusive liscense to your product. This is actually an opportunity for you. You can make some money now, have a possibility for a support contract or more commercial work in the future, and you can say the code is used in a commercial product, which speaks of its quality.
Things you should specify (off the top of my head - maybe you can find some more information elsewhere):
Your (or your company's) name and address, and theirs. At the bottom, your name and the person on their side, with signatures.
Disclaimer of your liability: That the software is provided on an as-is basis and you the vendor have absolutely no liability for any defect in it, nor for any losses that may ensue through its use, or its legality in some jurisdiction, nor it is intended for illegal uses, or use in mission critical applications, etc. There is plenty of boilerplate around you can find that says this. (Assuming they are just buying something of yours and they aren't hiring you to create something for them. If they were, you'd have to guarantee against fatal-level defects, and that it meets a carefully agreed-on specification. Things like behavior in a cluster, usability on a certain architecture, 64-bit, Y2K or security related vulnerabilities would then require you to maintain it. You should add in it that any work to make improvements or repair bugs will be charged separately.)
The price. Charge them a reasonable price for it, this is a commercial license and you can include some support with it. If you include 10 hours support for free then maybe $1000 is okay, or more it depends on what the amount of code is of course. Charge for additional work you do at a certain hourly rate too if you want. Maybe you could discuss that here. You could sound them off about the price verbally. Priced beyond a certain threshold will make the decision get booted up higher.
The deliverables. Usually they need something physical. Make a CD with a nice label, write a short instruction manual, and print it out on paper (also included as a PDF or text file inside the CD). The CD and manual are physical assets that they can put in the vault and have available for software audits.
Your responsiblity to support them. You may be tempted to say support is free forever, but don't do that, it costs you your time and they want value. Say limited support for a short amount of time and if they want it you can make some separate consulting or support contract with them.
If they are paying you then you can afford to provide them with support to get up and running, or to discuss wit
How do you know the government doesn't have their own licensing terms with Microsoft? I know MS provide source code licenses to companies/governments that are willing to pay and I reckon that the US government are one of these...
Chicken or Egg?
Egg. An animal almost like a chicken laid a chicken egg, from which became the chicken.
You just defined WGA there. But Microsoft isn't going to jail for it, are they? Your analogy breaks down because, whether it should or not, the sort of fucking about that is illegal in cars is absolutely fine under law with digital products.
And that is a license restriction. Therefore the BSD is less free. The BSD has restrictions. And, apparently (you DID read the thread topic, didn't you?) yes, this is too much for some companies.
Why do you think that MS didn't want Dell branding unless they got paid? Why do you think one of the reasons for a closed driver for NVidia is wanted (they can then put their logo in the startup screen).
So the answer to your question is "yes, it IS too much nowadays".
In any case, if you supply a closed source license, you're going to need to take out professional indemnity insurance for a very large amount, and maintain that insurance for many years. So you need to cost the premiums, the likely rise in premiums over the years, and the hassle of organising it into your fee.
When someone uses your open source software there is in law no implied contract between you and them, because they haven't supplied you with anything of value in return for your software. So if they sued you, they would (in sane jurisdictions) lose (provided you could afford to defend yourself, and people like FSF and EFF would probably help). However as soon as you accept anything of value in return for your software, you have a contract and so you're potentially liable if failures in the software cause damage to the user. You might or might not win in court if sued, but no-one would help you so you're likely to be bankrupted if you lose. So you need insurance. So you need to cost for it - and that means the cost of your licensed software is going to be quite high.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, particularly not in whatever jurisdiction you are in. But I have been in exactly the position you describe, and those are my conclusions. In practice you're probably going to be put to quite a bit of work and inconvenience working out exactly what is would cost you to provide a closed source license, and when you do your potential customer will back away rapidly.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
If all of the code they want to use is copyrighted by you, you can use whichever licenses you want. There's nothing stopping you from giving away code under an open source and selling the exact same code with a closed source license. Just make sure the closed source license won't become an obstacle for the open source license.
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> This is in contrast to say, LGPL, where the changes do have to be released back if any are made. If none are made, the code doesn't need to be released.
Once again, the BSD crowd gets the [L]GPL wrong. You need to offer to release the changes to the people/entities you are giving the modified product to. Not more, but not less, either.
You might think the difference is minimal. I don't.
> The BSD license is already more permissive than any other license, and allows code to be used in proprietary products.
Not quite. More permissive to the direct user, potentially a lot less permissive for anyone after that.
BSD wants to give all freedoms and thus gives up a certain portion willfully.
GPL is not quite as permissive, but keeps that level for everyone down the stream.
> It basically says "Do whatever the hell you want with this software just say I wrote it", I'd hardly call that restrictive and I don't see how a third party would really care.
We are talking lawyers here. If there is one thing they are good at, it's covering their and their companies asses. And if you had RTFA, you would know that, and I quote, Even though there should be no restrictions on usage, companies very often request a different license citing as a valid reason that the creator of such platform has special terms forbidding 'open source software' in the contracts forced upon the developer.
Just make sure that
(a) what you give them is a nonexclusive license to redistribute your code and doesn't actually transfer the copyright to them, so you can continue to distribute the BSD version.
(b) they pay you enough money to cover the cost of having a lawyer give the contract the once-over vis. making sure you're not exposing yourself to any liabilities.
If they're not proposing to pay you enough money to cover the admin and make it worth your while, tell them to either use the BSD version which you've generously made available or go fish.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Anyone ever enforced/tested that EULA? Didn't think so.
aside: he is probably reacting [poorly] to the "GPL is a virus" garbage spewed by Microsoft.
You don't really say whether this company that wants your software with a non-open licence is just asking for this or if you are trying to get into a business arrangement with them where you are selling a licence to them to use the software. Of course, the assumption is that this software is 100% yours and you are free to license as you wish (or else this whole topic is moot).
So, if they are just asking for a non-open license from you with no renumeration, what's your motivation to satisfy their request? Personally, I'd just tell 'em to go pound sand.
So you must be trying to get remunerated for this non-open license. If that's the case, then contrary to your claims, you do (or will) have the money to go get the legal advise if you really feel like you need it.
They don't outright ban free/open source software, but they make you jump thru hoops to use it. Products like SQLite will sell you this one for a nice fee.
Writing a separate license could get YOU into some new legal liabilities, including the expectation of support, reliability, suitability for their purposes, and possibly even financially liable for their failures.
Just tell them straight up that it appears they have made a grave error in the analysis of open source licenses and have assumed that the GPL license is universal in open source. Explain to them ONCE (and tell them this is their ONE and only chance to get this clue) that BSD is different than lots of other open source licenses.
But if you do decide to humor these idiots, you better have an experienced team of licensing lawyers review the license you have with them to be sure you didn't just stuck your neck out under their knife. They will want to pass on all liabilities to you. If they didn't make the mistake of misunderstanding BSD, then this is exactly what they are trying to do.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
... before following any of the above advice. By all means do NOT let the client/customer write the license or you will end up being liable for everything.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
suck my dick you faggot open source fags.
Way to go attacking someone, yet completely missing the point.
The argument was about freeware vs open-source software... freeware as in free as beer, but closed-source. Since it's closed-source, it can (and often will) contain loads of spyware and other crap.
So yes, it is not economically auditable, as opposed to open-source where you can have someone check the source.
Freeware really is the worst of both worlds: no source to check and use for support and/or changes, and no vendor to get support from.
PageTurner Reader: open-source e-reader for Android with cloudsync. http://pageturner-reader.org
GPL-style Open source software has an implied social contract. You get to use someone else's work for free as long as you contribute your additions, improvements, bug-fixes, etc. back to the community. If they want to use your work without the burden of returning back to the community, they should pay you for your work (and you should have no qualms about dual-licensing it if the price is right).
With BSD-style licenses there is no social contract, implied or otherwise. You get to use someone else's work as you see fit. I think you should dual license it and let them use it how you want, perhaps charging a small fee (smaller than the GPL-style licensed code) to cover your effort required to draft a second license if you see fit (as mattr suggested above).
If a company wants to pay you money for software you wrote, then for the love of god, take it, and give them whatever license they want. They don't actually need a different license, but that doesn't matter because what they're really after is support, not licensing. So write up an N-year support contract where you promise to take their calls and promptly fix any bugs they report, and charge appropriately for it.
That's not so clear-cut. You obviously define "chicken-egg" as "egg from which a chicken grows" but "an egg laid by a chicken" is an equally valid definition. Indeed, one could even argue that it is a better definition, because for example from those chicken eggs you get in a supermarket in general there couldn't grow a chicken. Now applying that definition, the egg that your almost-chicken laid was clearly not a chicken egg, because it wasn't laid by a chicken. From this almost-chicken egg then grew a chicken, which subsequently laid chicken eggs. Therefore the chicken was first.
Of course all that ignores that there's no clear-cut line between chickens and non-chickens anyway.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Sounds like management at your company has its head firmly up the proverbial dark spot.
I work at one of the world's largest defense companies.
We may integrate open source, for our DEFENSE CUSTOMERS, into our defense projects, insofar as we follow certain rules.
The primary two rules are:
1. The source from which we obtain the open source product must be domestically located, and a significant commercial operation. E.g., Red Hat, or:
1b. We review every line of code ourselves for security purposes, and
2. The license, and our approach to the use of the licensed product, must be one already approved by legal.
Stock licenses such as BSD, Apache, GPL, LGPL are all approved according to specific use cases.
The BSD license is a take it or leave it license. If you want a real open source license you'd better go with the GPL
There. Let the flames begin.
You might consider disclaiming copyright in a contract with the customer. The customer can then apply any license they choose to that copy, and all other copies remain under BSD.
This means you only need a lawyer to draft a very brief contract that says, in effect, "for consideration X, I agree to supply Y to Z without any warranty, expressed or implied".
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
if ppl/company have requirements of no OSS code in their stuff including BSD, then follow their model as well; Not sure what the library is, but if doing a lot of work, then he should charge a seat fee (per developer) as well as a client fee (per sale). Basically, closed code, combined with source code is VERY EXPENSIVE.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yes, but the original riddle doesn't specify a chicken egg. It just says egg. Obviously, eggs not further specified preceded chickens by millions of years for any reasonable definition of 'chicken'.
"Let them fail." Rush said this towards the TARP money which he was against but his idea works in any market. If they don't get the code they need and an open source alternative works then the open source alternative will drive them under.
The way to do it is this:
(technically it may look different but this is the legal gist.)
You have the Trunk under a closeware license. It essentially says "nobody can copy, use this or do anything with it unless I say otherwise. I can change this license at will" You develop it and create a stable version, say, 1.0. Then you create a branch 1.0-free, and a branch 1.0-proprietary. One is GNU, the other has some EULA. You still develop Trunk, but you don't develop Free or Proprietary any more, just as soon as you reach "Stable" in Trunk you create new Free and Proprietary branches. You may port customer-supplied patches from Proprietary to Trunk and Free just fine. But you can't port community-submitted patches of Free to the other two - you have to rewrite them from scratch in Trunk, and once done they may replace the community-submitted in Free and enter Proprietary too.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Have you ever received any contributions?
As the author, you are entitled to relicense the software as you see fit. But if you have ever received a patch from anyone, you are no longer the sole author. This means that the only parts you can relicense are the bits you wrote. You can't relicense any of the bits other people wrote without their approval.
Having multiple authors in a projects makes your life significantly more complicated, legally speaking. It's vitally important to keep a record of any contributions you've received to a project. The FSF actually require all contributors to their official projects to sign over copyright to them so that they legally own the contributions, simply to avoid the problem of having multiple authors.
This has been a problem with some semi-open-source projects. I remember that the sparse compiler frontend, which had a rather strange and legally dubious license, is now unable to relicense the source to something more sensible because some of the authors no longer exist, which means their approval cannot be obtained.
So you need to be very careful here. Producing a commercial license simply may not be an option for you.
How did you manage to miss the take over by Compaq and then HP? I had systems under service that went to Compaq and then HP. Three companies later and we're still buying Digital kit supported by HP. The fact that Compaq and HP diss-assembled the world wide service organization that Digital had in place and replaced it with off shore script monkeys could be be problem, but there are enough ex-Digits out there that the gap can be closed.
Just dual license and allow them to skip the copyright acknowledgement. In effect sell the code to them. You are allowed to dual license it as long as you didn't use anyone else's code as part of your own, or maybe got it from public domain code. They just don't want anyone's name but their own in their acknowledgments box. Also to make a little extra money let them know that you will allow them to buy an annual support license from you. If you don't want to do that then just sale the code and move on. No big debate here like some slashdot geeks seem to think.
The post I responded to made various claims about the valuable "protection" associated with buying commercial software. I called bullshit, referring directly to the statements made in that post. Either refute my argument or go away.
I'm not sure I would say that DEC was the #2 by the mid 1990s, they were already on the ropes. And how it turned out was Compaq bought them and the platform died slowly. Even today HP openVMS is still a supported platform.
see, what they want is you - you proved high talent and that's what they want; they want you to give up your alternatives and become their property so that they can make use/abuse of you without you having a backup to tell them f**k up and leave.
I didn't mention the Compaq and HP acquisitions because they are (for my purposes) irrelevant. As the Digital's money ran out, a once-brilliant service and engineering organization was handed to the script monkeys. Even worse, most of the software products were sold off, including several that we were depending on. For the most part, the new vendors were simply buying a customer list and imposing a semi-forced migration to their mainstream software products. This kind of transaction is not limited to Digital, and possibly worth a discussion of its own.
What was once a tightly integrated set of layered products turned into a scavenger hunt for bits and pieces. Sure, with enough money and patience you could close the gap. And thanks to Compaq and HP, you might even avoid resorting to Ebay. For a few highly specialized shops, I'm sure it was worth the effort. But for most others, there was no point in trying.
The pieces that survive today as part of HP are mere table scraps compared to what existed before. Not that any of this was Compaq or HP's fault. The meltdown was well underway before Compaq bought anything.
The point I was trying to make: Technology companies try hard to make customers dependent upon them. That dependency comes with a high price when there are disruptive changes in the industry.
Tell them no. You've licensed your product the way you see fit, if they don't want to use it "as provided," they're not required to use it. Adding your code to a closed-source product encourages them to add a copyright to their product including your copyrighted and open source code in the closed source...thereby making it harder to find where and when your code is being used or abused, and encouraging unscrupulous developers to remove all comments and attribution from the mingled code and passing it on as theirs, possibly endangering your copyright. Keep it open source with attribution intact!
I reckon that the US government are one of these...
They are. Besides which, MS goes for various 'common criteria' certifications which means independent parties checking over the code.
I don't read AC A human right
"Auditable binaries"? When was the last time you audited one? Ever read a Microsoft EULA? Neither the government nor anyone else will be going after Microsoft for anything, even if they provided a back door. I seriously doubt anyone can extract ANY remedy beyond possibly a refund of purchase price. Again, read the EULA. Feel the "protection".
I'm not qualified, really, to audit code. What I DO know is that performing a security audit on a pure binary is hell. Thus doing so is uneconomical. Doing so from source code is much more economical.
Not going after microsoft? Well, microsoft's very position makes it more 'trustworthy' than a small time software operation. If the incident's bad enough, heck yeah the feds and other companies would go after them.
You mean like having the vendor go out of business and you can't get the source code?
Like I said, it happens anyways. Government rules are to actually favor the open source alternative, but they want it licensed. Heck, Firefox didn't have a hard time getting approved. The benefits of being popular I guess.
As for warranties, back to the EULA once again. Find me a software license that grants any warranty or accepts any liability beyond possibly refunding the purchase price. Just one. Got links to share?
Not in the licensing department, sorry. By 'warranty' I was actually talking about a multitude of after-purchase support options besides just monetary relief, which we DO get.
There have been several cases where large software companies were found guilty of patent or copyright infringement. Have ANY of their customers ever been charged with infringement for merely possessing the infringing software? Again, where are the cases and let's have some links.
Exactly. By buying a license from company A for their 'product', if any code is found to be in violation of copyright they go after company A, not the government or other company.
Makes you wonder how valuable this "protection" is.
Never said it's absolute, it's risk management. And you're confusing what I think and believe, and what the people above me who actually have purchasing power think and believe.
I was posting what the higher ups think, of course it's going to be wrong on several points. I was posting about how there's a lot of FUD out there, wasn't I?
There's the real concerns, then there's what the higher ups are afraid of. They intersect somewhat.
I don't read AC A human right
Freeware really is the worst of both worlds: no source to check and use for support and/or changes, and no vendor to get support from.
Basically. The other poster misunderstood a number of my points.
By 'warranty' I meant more like 'car warranty'. And yes, you CAN sue microsoft if they screw up badly enough. Or Oracle, etc... Or go to a different vender, etc...
I don't read AC A human right
OT a big, but I see a lot of suggestions about contacting a lawyer to discuss things like this in depth, but what should you look for in finding one of these lawyers? Specifically if you're not in a tech-savvy part of the country; i.e., say a medium-sized town in the Mid-West? I've got a project I would like some lawyerly advice on, but everyone locally seems to be either personal injury, property law, or divorce law. Would someone who's familiar with general contract law or something work? Or how do you go about finding a person or firm that's familiar with software licenses and IP law?
"Pretty much FUD"
No liar, pretty much dead on.
You really are a loser, lying when you're wrong/ignorant on a subject, then attacking others when they point out your error/ignorance.
How fucking pathetic are you?
This is all good thinking, but the problem persists: what happens when the customer finds out they've been sold something that recently was open source? It is very possible that the CEO will be a retard, or pretend to be one, and sue for breach of contract. We said no open source, this thing is the same code as the open source version, we want our money back.
Here's the situation I see. OP is a potential code source (for lack of a better term). Potential customer requires "no open source" as part of the platform requirements. Platform is controlled by a third party, which has (or will have if the potential customer develops for the platform) a contract with specific wording. If the wording excludes open source *licenses*, you might be allowed to re-license it. If the contract says no open-source *code* then you're screwed.
It doesn't matter whether they are right, point is they might see this as a way to recoup costs, making the bottom line grow. Especially if they search for more info and find this discussion and read my comment, in which case they might go along with the deal simply so they can sue for breach of contract and wind up with the software for free, and maybe punitive damages for you knowingly offering open source code. Just getting caught in such a lawsuit would probably ruin a person, even if you win.
Most of this discussion is centered around trying to make the open-source aspect of the code go away, or be negligible, or do some jedi hand waving and make it work. I'm putting forth the idea that this is dangerous, and we must consider the customer's contract. In fact, we can't consider it because we don't have it, and OP might not even be able to have access to it. So none of our comments are worth anything at this point. Food for thought, but it doesn't get OP any closer to resolution.
1) Hire an attorney - OP already said that's out of the question
2) Re-license - depending on the customer's contract this might not be possible
3) Walk away - probably the best course of action, knowing the attention span of a company is less than a week on any topic other than "the bottom line"
4) And my recommendation. If the potential customer wants the code, make them navigate the legal waters for you, with an advance as part of the deal so you can afford to hire a lawyer to represent you. Don't take one of their lawyers if they offer time - that's suicide (we're already paying this guy, so let him help you and it costs no one any extra money - but it's a trap designed to get our way). If they can't or won't do that, it's up to you on whether you want to make the investment in researching your options further. But not a good sign.
They want the code because it will be cheaper - and if they let you take the legal responsibilities, they are getting work for free. Look how much legal advice (good and bad) they already have turned up in a centralized, almost easy-to-read format... the amount of time you will need to read and consider these responses has already taken time away from whatever else you intended to do today, or for the next week probably.