Yes. Somewhere in my attic I have the keyboard from Pixar's Picture System III. It had LED labels over the function keys, although I've never figured out how to use it without the Picture System. I have the front panel from the Lucasfilm (and later Pixar) VAX in my office. It was used to make the "Genesis Effect" in Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn" and perhaps some stuff in Star Wars.
What is new today is the rise of global, large-scale collaboration on public-benefit works like Open Source software and Creative Commons, much of which is produced without any profit motive. This was made possible by the Internet, and to a lesser extent by Usenet before it. IMO the existence of this collaboration changes the entire economic equation, and if the patent system doesn't fit it well, it's the patent system that has to change.
Duff's Device. Pre-ANSI C-language means of unrolling an arbitrary-length loop. We had an Evans and Sutherland Picture System II at the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, and Tom wrote this to feed it IO as quickly as possible.
To make sense of this you have to think about quid-pro-quo. If the company has contributed a lot of code under the GPL, and expects to continue to do so, having a way for the company to pay for that is a fair quid-pro-quo for the company.
If the contributor gets something back for their code contribution, that is fair for the contributor. The problem is that most dual-licensing projects don't even promise the code will continue to be free for one day after your contribution! And a few years back, Sun made an agreement with Microsoft in which they promised to rat out on their own Open Source developers and help Microsoft prosecute them for infringement. Fortunately, it appears they never really did that, but it didn't make people happier about signing over copyrights to Sun.
So, I propose to give my developers a covenant that the company will keep development in Open Source for two years after their contribution, or remove their contribution.
Some sort of dividend?
Sounds interesting, and.... simple enough.
That is possible. What I am thinking of is a covenant to continue the development as Open Source for two years after the contribution, or to remove the contribution.
Many dual-licensed projects are perfectly happy to accept patches, as long as you sign over the copyright or the right to relicense, and swear that you are the author of work and don't know of any infringements in it.
The problem is motivating people to sign that. I think I know a way, but I'm still working on the product for my new company so don't yet have proof.
There is an easy answer to this. Don't make the software as your business. Most of the successful Open Source applications are made by Open Source projects in which businesses participate, not businesses whose goal is to make the software.
Am I saying that Open Source business doesn't work? Most of the time it does not. It depends on what you are doing.
This isn't accurate. While the GPL lets you charge, it doesn't let you keep the person you give the software from giving away your product for free. So it essentially poisons a proprietary business method. That is why dual-licensing works.
Say, in theory, that you decide to fund your company by supporting a single Open Source product. Put yourself in the customer's place:
The customer will have to spend a lot of time just figuring out what is breaking, so that he or she knows who to call.
The customer will then have to spend additional time proving to the vendor that something is broken in their product, while the vendor points elsewhere: hardware, OS, someone else's product.
The customer will have to manage integrating all of these piece-mal support companies into their own support solution.
This is total hell for the customer.
So, it works out that to offer support on a single Open Source product, the vendor has to make a deal with an integrator who will service everything, both hardware and software, and funnel business to the vendor.
But the vendor would rather make a larger profit by using their own resources when possible.
So, the one-product Open Source company doesn't succeed in offering support business, long term.
There is one Open Source company that pays dividends today. That's Red Hat. Most of them make a big noise, but aren't terribly profitable if at all. Once in a while we get one of them to admit it.
Fortunately you don't need companies to make Open Source.
The only reason people ask this question is because they take a simplistic "one fits all" view of Open Source.
A great many ways have been tried to make money from Open Source. Dual-licensing is one of the best. It requires a strong copyleft license.
On the other side, if you are investing your own time, without pay, in an Open Source project, having folks run away with it in their commercial product makes you feel like an unpaid employee with no rights. So, a lot of people use the GPL because of that.
Apache or BSD licensing is really good if you want everyone to use your stuff regardless of what they do with it. There are many strategic reasons to do that, for example if you are trying to evangelize a standard way of doing things (that, perhaps, ties into some other aspect of your business and will eventually make you money).
Companies that apply BSD or Apache licensing to their products are really severely limiting how they can possibly make money from that product. Having seen some of these companies fail (I've not been directly involved in one, yet) it sounds like a bad idea.
The company I'm working on now does use dual licensing.
Yes, we all know Hurd didn't turn out very well. There's a Debian port for it, too. But having one production-quality kernel that it ran upon was a bit of a pain.
Slashdot Mirror
Freedom of speech does not require that I give anyone a podium.
FEMA, in this case, was forced to remove the material due to pressure to be "politically correct". Yes, that's censorship.
Yes, public pressure is a very frequent mechanism used for censorship.
Yes. Somewhere in my attic I have the keyboard from Pixar's Picture System III. It had LED labels over the function keys, although I've never figured out how to use it without the Picture System. I have the front panel from the Lucasfilm (and later Pixar) VAX in my office. It was used to make the "Genesis Effect" in Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn" and perhaps some stuff in Star Wars.
What is new today is the rise of global, large-scale collaboration on public-benefit works like Open Source software and Creative Commons, much of which is produced without any profit motive. This was made possible by the Internet, and to a lesser extent by Usenet before it. IMO the existence of this collaboration changes the entire economic equation, and if the patent system doesn't fit it well, it's the patent system that has to change.
Bruce
Censorship is a bigger danger to the American Public than any FEMA publication.
Oops, it says he wrote it at Lucasfilm.
Duff's Device. Pre-ANSI C-language means of unrolling an arbitrary-length loop. We had an Evans and Sutherland Picture System II at the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab, and Tom wrote this to feed it IO as quickly as possible.
Send me the URL and I will show it to someone responsible. bruce at perens dot com .
Read the complaint. Don't do the stupid obvious license violations alleged in the complaint. Then you'll be fine.
Nobody violates a Free Software / Open Source license for a smart reason. Cisco hasn't got their compliance act together.
This is no longer true. Nokia put Qt under LGPL.
To make sense of this you have to think about quid-pro-quo. If the company has contributed a lot of code under the GPL, and expects to continue to do so, having a way for the company to pay for that is a fair quid-pro-quo for the company.
If the contributor gets something back for their code contribution, that is fair for the contributor. The problem is that most dual-licensing projects don't even promise the code will continue to be free for one day after your contribution! And a few years back, Sun made an agreement with Microsoft in which they promised to rat out on their own Open Source developers and help Microsoft prosecute them for infringement. Fortunately, it appears they never really did that, but it didn't make people happier about signing over copyrights to Sun.
So, I propose to give my developers a covenant that the company will keep development in Open Source for two years after their contribution, or remove their contribution.
Bruce
The commerce clause and the copyright clause are two of the enumerated powers. The cases you cite deal with the commerce clause. So, I don't see how.
See his Legal Affairs Article: How I Lost the Big One.
That is possible. What I am thinking of is a covenant to continue the development as Open Source for two years after the contribution, or to remove the contribution.
My customers are putting Linux in new car dashboards and cell phones.
You make me really glad that I use GPL3 and AGPL3. I want customers or Open Source developers. You aren't asking to be either.
Many dual-licensed projects are perfectly happy to accept patches, as long as you sign over the copyright or the right to relicense, and swear that you are the author of work and don't know of any infringements in it.
The problem is motivating people to sign that. I think I know a way, but I'm still working on the product for my new company so don't yet have proof.
There is an easy answer to this. Don't make the software as your business. Most of the successful Open Source applications are made by Open Source projects in which businesses participate, not businesses whose goal is to make the software.
Am I saying that Open Source business doesn't work? Most of the time it does not. It depends on what you are doing.
This isn't accurate. While the GPL lets you charge, it doesn't let you keep the person you give the software from giving away your product for free. So it essentially poisons a proprietary business method. That is why dual-licensing works.
Say, in theory, that you decide to fund your company by supporting a single Open Source product. Put yourself in the customer's place:
The customer will have to spend a lot of time just figuring out what is breaking, so that he or she knows who to call.
The customer will then have to spend additional time proving to the vendor that something is broken in their product, while the vendor points elsewhere: hardware, OS, someone else's product.
The customer will have to manage integrating all of these piece-mal support companies into their own support solution.
This is total hell for the customer.
So, it works out that to offer support on a single Open Source product, the vendor has to make a deal with an integrator who will service everything, both hardware and software, and funnel business to the vendor.
But the vendor would rather make a larger profit by using their own resources when possible.
So, the one-product Open Source company doesn't succeed in offering support business, long term.
There is one Open Source company that pays dividends today. That's Red Hat. Most of them make a big noise, but aren't terribly profitable if at all. Once in a while we get one of them to admit it.
Fortunately you don't need companies to make Open Source.
The only reason people ask this question is because they take a simplistic "one fits all" view of Open Source.
A great many ways have been tried to make money from Open Source. Dual-licensing is one of the best. It requires a strong copyleft license.
On the other side, if you are investing your own time, without pay, in an Open Source project, having folks run away with it in their commercial product makes you feel like an unpaid employee with no rights. So, a lot of people use the GPL because of that.
Apache or BSD licensing is really good if you want everyone to use your stuff regardless of what they do with it. There are many strategic reasons to do that, for example if you are trying to evangelize a standard way of doing things (that, perhaps, ties into some other aspect of your business and will eventually make you money).
Companies that apply BSD or Apache licensing to their products are really severely limiting how they can possibly make money from that product. Having seen some of these companies fail (I've not been directly involved in one, yet) it sounds like a bad idea.
The company I'm working on now does use dual licensing.
I just set my filter to +2 and miss them all :-)
Yes, we all know Hurd didn't turn out very well. There's a Debian port for it, too. But having one production-quality kernel that it ran upon was a bit of a pain.
Just a Pratchett fan. Although it's astonishing how quickly one can read someone else's life's work.
Yes, I'll be at the annual Undead meeting in Dayton. It'll be good to see you and the others there.