Re: [OS:N:] Another question about Licenses

[Alexandre Oliva <aoliva redhat com>]

On Nov  7, 2003, Chris Spencer <cspencer cait org> wrote:

> Such a license usually says that for non-proprietary use the code is GPL
> but if someone wants to use it in their for profit product they will
> have to pay you and you can make them pay you dearly.  

non-proprietary != ! for-profit

You can make a living out of free (as in freedom) software.  There are
companies out there proving it is possible.

> On Fri, 2003-11-07 at 17:08, Anthony Saffer wrote:

>> I want it to remain "open source" in that everyone gets a copy of the source
>> when they purchase it. But I want to maintain control so that I can protect
>> the integrity of the software.

This is not open source.  Please read the open source definition at
http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php.  You'd be in violation of
the first bullet, for starters.

Open source and free software are fundamentally contrary to vendor
lock-in, which is what your control is all about.  Sure, having access
to the source code is nice, but it's only part of it.  Without the
other freedoms, it's sort of like serving jail time but being allowed
to go out visit your family on say Tuesday evenings :-)

-- 
Alexandre Oliva   Enjoy Guarana', see http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Red Hat GCC Developer                 aoliva {redhat com, gcc.gnu.org}
CS PhD student at IC-Unicamp        oliva {lsd ic unicamp br, gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist                Professional serial bug killer