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Does dual licensing threaten free software? (Linux Journal)
Glyn Moody
examines some issues behind the dual-licensing of software projects,
in a Linux Journal article.
"A whole new generation of open source companies like MySQL, SugarCRM and JasperSoft have shown that such an approach can be highly successful, and this is encouraging others to adopt the same model Scalix is the latest to join the club. Before this becomes established as the de facto standard for open source business in the dotcom 2.0 world, now might be a good time to examine whether it is really is such a good thing for free software, or whether it might even represent a threat to its fundamental principles."
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Does dual licensing threaten free software? (Linux Journal) Posted Jul 27, 2006 20:05 UTC (Thu) by HenrikH (guest, #31152) [Link] Since you cam fork the code and thus make it GPL-only if you like (if one of the licenses is the GPL) I do not see the big threat here?
Does dual licensing threaten free software? (Linux Journal) Posted Jul 27, 2006 21:31 UTC (Thu) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] Some concerns: (not necessarily valid in practice, we shall have to see.)
Some percentage of people may not help as a result of having to assign copyrights to their improvements over to the project.
The paid labour drives out volunteer problem may slow things down.
Project may close up and it may take too long for the fork team to come up to speed.
Does anyone see these as possible problems? Anyone have any ideas for solutions if so?
The first may be lessened somewhat if a project were to commit to always having the Free version (on the same footing, with the same features, etc. Just not the same support.) This would certainly help the third.
The second is tough. Should a project set aside a certain percentage of revenues / profit for distribution amoung all coders (some other contributor group?) each year, whether they are internal or external coders? Would that help? Hurt?
Does anyone have any stats as to the percentage of paid versus volunteer coders for the major projects, inside versus outside?
all the best,
drew
Does dual licensing threaten free software? (Linux Journal) Posted Jul 28, 2006 8:26 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] Some percentage of people may not help as a result of having to assign copyrights to their improvements over to the project. That's no different to the way the FSF works... If I ever contributed code, I'd simply say that either I grant them the right to sublicence as they see fit provided the licence ALWAYS remains dual proprietary/GPL, or demand that part of the payment for handing over copyright is a guarantee that the code will always be distributed with the GPL as an option. That way, if they ever want to go "proprietary only", their licence to my stuff goes "pfffft!" Cheers.Wol
Does dual licensing threaten free software? (Linux Journal) Posted Aug 3, 2006 2:39 UTC (Thu) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] "zotz" wrote:Some percentage of people may not help as a result of having to assign copyrights to their improvements over to the project. I deny the premise: It's simply untrue to claim that anyone need sign over copyrights to the product. Of course, the flip side is that the aspiring-to-canonical project's maintainers need not accept your contribution, if you are not so willing. Essentially, a project that says "We want your patches' copyright title, so as to have the right to multilicense without your specific leave" is implicitly saying "OK, want the ability to fork our codebase? No problem, go for it, and may the best maintainer win." And meanwhile, you retain the option of accepting its patches under copyleft terms, as long as they continute to produce them. Which is the way free software works, n'est-ce pas? Rick Moen
Does dual licensing threaten free software? (Linux Journal) Posted Jul 27, 2006 21:44 UTC (Thu) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link] From my perspective (mostly being a end user) I don't see much of any difference between releasing something under a GPL/propriatory dual license vs releasing stuff under a GPL/BSD or GPL/MIT dual license, which is not uncommon.
In one setup (as a programmer) your getting paid extra by some company that wants to use your code in a propriatory manner, and in the other setup you don't get paid for using your code to sell a propriatory product. Might as well take advantage of the situation I guess.
I that is the majority of the difference.
There are some other issues, like if a third project wants to use your code in a open source but not GPL-compatable manner. One thing that I figure does NOT work is when people use GPL as a sort of shareware license. Like if they have 'community' project A, but if you want all the features then you have to pay for 'professional' project A+B.
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