[RouterGeocoder] Dual-licensing

Thu Dec 4 00:08:41 EST 2008

Good evening, Dave.

Well, it might be I don't get the idea behind MIT/BSD style ideas.
Doesn't it mean that in this case ESRI for example could just use this
library without any obligations, without giving credits to the authors?

What I just hope to achieve is a way how "proprietary/commercial" is
allowed but needs a license that is (maybe) not gratis.
Well, if we don't want to charge money for this license, let's give it
for "free". Is this then like MIT/BSD?

I think, it's always difficult for OSGeo projects to find sponsors. It
could be a way to support ongoing development with such a
dual-licensing. Maybe not from the very first day, but in the future.
Why do you  think "parallel open source project" would appear if there
are two licenses? Through GPL for example there will be always a way to
use it gratis.
If someone wants to use it in closed source software, isn't it
legitimate to ask for money? ;-)
With MIT/BSD style licenses we believe in goodwill of people/companies.
That people contribute improvements or sponsor the project. I just don't
think this is the case usually.

Is there any recommendation of OSGeo on licensing?

Daniel

Dave McIlhagga schrieb:
> Hi Daniel,
>
> I see where you are going with this -- but I suspect that if there is
> actually legitimate demand for the "commercial" license -- in the long
> run this will simply encourage setup of a parallel open source project
> with MIT/BSD style license to appear. I'm not sure if that would
> really serve anyone's needs as it would result in duplication of
> effort and two weaker projects then one single initiative.
>
> I'm not sure why a license change is necessarily seen as a major
> challenge if the initial contributor group is small. PAGC changed it's
> license in less than a week with a brief discussion, a single vote,
> and some updates to documentation / source code files.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
> On 3-Dec-08, at 8:44 PM, Daniel Kastl wrote:
>
>> Hi Andrew and others,
>>
>> The recent posts were interesting. Because I was discussing this
>> dual-licensing  with Anton during lunch breaks, this is what I
>> believe is what a licensing model should provide:
>>
>>     * It should assure when projects use the "free" license (for
>>       example GPL), that this leads to collaboration and contributions.
>>     * It should not lock out closed source, but allow proprietary
>>       software to make use of it through a "commercial" license. And
>>       for this license the Routing/Geocoder project could charge
>>       money, which would then help to sponsor development.
>>
>> There are probably many successful examples. I don't know a
>> dual-license is the solution for this issue. I'm glad to be convinced
>> that there is a better way. I just thought this would be worth to
>> discuss before changing the license of existing projects.
>>
>> Daniel
>>
>>
>> Andrew Ross schrieb:
>>> Hi Anton, Everyone,
>>>
>>> This is an interesting discussion, thanks for posting. 
>>>
>>> I'm going to make the point that driving business with dual licensing (and
>>> GPL specifically) is a myth. Here goes...
>>>
>>> Quoting directly from the GPL:
>>>
>>>     b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
>>>     whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
>>>     part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
>>>     parties under the terms of this License.
>>>
>>> Section 3 in the license goes on to state you must make the code available
>>> somehow. Either by providing it or offering to provide it for no markup.
>>>
>>> In other words, if your work depends on this GPL code, and you publish it,
>>> your software thus becomes GPL. This is obviously scary if you link your
>>> unprotected (via. patents, etc.) IP against GPL code and distribute it. 
>>>
>>> As an important aside, the fact remains code can be decompiled so if you're
>>> only protection of your IP is obscuring access to the code, good luck!
>>>
>>> What's more interesting is what happens if you don't distribute your code?
>>> i.e. you just use it to provide a service, but you don't modify it and don't
>>> distribute derivative code. Is such a service a derivative work?
>>>
>>>
>>> In the dual licensing model the commercial license provides the right to
>>> link against a non-GPL version of the code. Doing so would avoid GPL
>>> contamination of the code. It is felt that this is the crux of the dual
>>> license business model. This model is used by RedHat, Ingres, MySQL, and
>>> others. However, I'm not sure this is valid.
>>>
>>> Here's why: the end customer could go out and get the GPL and use it for
>>> free. They could even link to it. Unless they redistribute, I don't believe
>>> GPL contamination kicks in. Thus the GPL itself is *not* as far as I can see
>>> a motivating factor for buying the commercial license.
>>>
>>> However, if at 3am the code explodes causing mass carnage, they're on their
>>> own unless they have a support contract with someone. Thus support and
>>> insurance against failure is the value they're interested in. You pay for
>>> support from Company because they're good at it and hopefully can do it
>>> better and cheaper than you can in-house.
>>>
>>> In other words, in my opinion: business is based on insurance against
>>> failure. This is orthogonal to the notion of GPL contamination. 
>>>
>>> If anyone knows of any precedent that disagrees or agrees with the above, I
>>> would be delighted to know about it.
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>> As is obvious by Ingres' GPLv2 license - my opinions are my own and not
>>> those of my employer
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: routergeocoder-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
>>> [mailto:routergeocoder-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Anton Patrushev
>>> Sent: December 2, 2008 11:31 PM
>>> To: routergeocoder at lists.osgeo.org
>>> Subject: [RouterGeocoder] Dual-licensing
>>>
>>> Hi list,
>>>
>>> I was thinking about how to adopt GPLed tools for proprietary solutions and
>>> I think the answer is dual-licensing.
>>> For example,
>>>
>>> 1. The community makes a Router/Geocoder library and grant all copyrights to
>>> the Foundation.
>>> 2. Foundation reissues it under two licenses - GPL for using with Open
>>> Source tools and some kind of commercial license for proprietary ones.
>>> 3. Commercial version is sold to proprietary tool developers and the money
>>> goes to the Foundation.
>>> 4. ?????
>>> 5. PROFIT!
>>> :)
>>>
>>> I think it is much better than reissuing existing tools under any kind of
>>> exotic BSD/MIT-ish license.
>>> What do you think?
>>>
>>>
>>> Anton.
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>>>   
>>
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