[plug] Software License Evaluation

[Shayne O'Neill]

The making money AND gpl bit is of course a little scary, BUT , folks do
make money off it. One could also consider dual licence, ie have a gpl
version and a paid version that includes a few goodies. That should be
fine for most folks.

 ------------------------------------
"Must not Sleep! Must warn others!"
-Aesop.
Shayne O'Neill. Indymedia. Fun.
http://www.perthimc.asn.au

On Tue, 1 Jun 2004, Onno Benschop wrote:

> I've read all the contributions to this thread, both to the list and
> private ones and think I understand better where I stand. For that I
> thank you.
>
> I think I understand the issues enough to make a series of statements
> and I'd love to hear what you think about it:
>
>      1. As an IT consultant, I derive income from hiring out my brain.
>         The most common form this takes is writing software. The
>         software I've written over several years has now gotten to the
>         point where I have been asked to sell it to clients.
>      2. If I license the software under the GPL - bearing in mind that
>         the code takes the form of a Web-Application written in PHP -
>         then I can charge the client for the purchase of the software.
>      3. There is no need for me to provide my application free of charge
>         to anyone, but of course the client is free to do with it what
>         they like.
>      4. In turn, the client is obliged to give any changes to the source
>         code back to me - either directly, or via a download - but
>         *only* if they re-distribute my application to another party.
>      5. Finally, I can include their modifications to my code if I feel
>         like it and any developer community that may or may not appear
>         will be initially sourced from the client base.
>      6. At some stage I might decide to release the application for free
>         to the world, but I'm not obliged to do so.
>      7. I can continue to derive income from the sale of the
>         application, add extra modules on an agreed brain for hire
>         charge and could decide to include such developed modules into
>         the code or not.
>      8. I have the option to decide if I wish to charge differential
>         rates for different combinations of modules.
>      9. I may also decide to include x-number of support calls, updates,
>         bug-fixes, whatever, associated with the application as sold to
>         the client.
>
> Is there anything in the above that raises eyebrows anywhere?
>
> Onno Benschop
>
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