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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.)"
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.
"...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.
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.
I'm not saying this to be sarcastic, but one big difference could be if he gets paid.
If they're offering to pay you for a closed source license, then it's worth time to research it. If they want the code free, they got no business asking a coder to do even more work for them in the form of a new license for free.
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...
I mean, basically they'd be lying to the concerned party by saying "Ohh, this isn't the OPEN SOURCE software you're afraid of." Even though it's the same code.
There is one big difference: it might not be the concerned party that's afraid of Open Source. I mean, they want to use it. It's some other entity they have a valid contract with, and that contract says no OSS.
Depending on the wording of that contract, a new licence can solve a lot of headaches.
... 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!
The only problem that MySQL is having with its licensing model is that Monty is a fucking idiot who wants to have his cake and eat it too. I'm sorry, you sold it. It's not yours any more. What you want no longer matters. Now shut up and go away.
It's not exactly rocket surgery.
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.
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"
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
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.
Just make sure it's a non-exclusive license, or non-exclusive transfer of copyright. What the submitter needs to be careful of is that the closed source license does not prevent him from continuing to develop and release his open source version.
Alternative licenses instead of BSD would be LGPL or Apache Public License.
But you are right - beware of closed licenses unless you have a perfectly clear specification that you aren't at risk of getting sued for any error in the code. I think that you should check with a Lawyer about your legal responsibilities and options to really avoid trouble. A commercial license usually also means commercial responsibility for the package.
And if you have created a package good enough to attract the interest of the commercial world it's probably better than any decently priced commercially available package anyway. What the commercial company probably fears is the risk of having to open up their own code to the world since their license is "contaminated" by BSD or whatever.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
> 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.
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
I don't see why that should be the case. Look at any Microsoft product - it explicitly says in the licence that there is no warranty and no guarantee of fitness for purpose. There's nothing to stop any closed-source licence saying "You cannot have the source code. You have no guarantee that this will work. If it breaks, you own both pieces."
Why talk them out of paying you money. If they want you to change the licence, get them to pay, if they won't pay, don't do their legal work for them.
Bingo.
For years Microsoft used BSD licensed code in Windows' networking. It never caused a problem for their customers. I wouldn't be surprised if removing it were a political decision.
For practical purposes "no open source software" means they customer wants a 100% Microsoft development and deployment stack. It means no Apache, no perl, php, and for practical purposes no Java either. The only entity in the world who has a rational reason to avoid BSD licensed software is Microsoft, and purely for the purpose of preventing its customers from buying competitor's software. There's no rational reason to avoid BSD licensed software as a customer, because it's just a minimal subset of what's in just about every proprietary license that isn't written by an idiot.
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