Providing a Closed Source License Upon Request? 245
goruka writes "As a citizen of the open source community, I have written several applications and libraries and released under the BSD license. Because of my license choice, I often run into the situation where a company wants to write software for a closed platform using my code or libraries. Even though there should be no restrictions on usage, companies very often request a different license, citing as a valid reason that the creator of such platform has special terms forbidding 'open source software' in the contracts forced upon the developer. So my question is, has anyone else run into this situation, and are there examples of such licenses that I can provide? (Please keep in mind that I'm not a US resident and I don't have access or resources to afford a lawyer there.)"
Word Games? (Score:1, Informative)
This is more on goruka's clients than goruka. Is there really any difference between using relicensed software that is open source and just using open source software?
Dual-license (Score:5, Informative)
You can have your program both licensed under BSD, and also offer the same code/library as closed-source for $xx at the same time, with different conditions and fewer restrictions.
An example of other software that uses the dual-licensing approach is MySQL: for more information see http://www.mysql.com/news-and-events/newsletter/2003-11/a0000000220.html [mysql.com]
Re:Dual-license (Score:4, Informative)
You can have your program both licensed under BSD, and also offer the same code/library as closed-source for $xx at the same time, with different conditions and fewer restrictions.
Or just have them incorporate your BSD-licensed code into their larger work licensed under a more restrictive license. This is in contrast to say, LGPL, where the changes do have to be released back if any are made. If none are made, the code doesn't need to be released.
If it makes them feel any better, license it under a 4-clause BSD license, where they actually have to give you credit for it, but also provide it under a 3-clause license for everybody else. I've done exactly that, but in reverse, for customers. The publicly-released code is 4-clause, but the customer can do WTF-ever he/she wants with it, and doesn't have to credit me.
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
If I remember well, the Wii is such a platform. And I don't see why it wouldn't be legal: if you want to have a devkit, you have to comply with *a lot* of conditions
Yale Standard License (Score:3, Informative)
Yale makes this available. Edit to suit your needs.
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/standlicagree.html [yale.edu]
Let them write the license (Score:3, Informative)
They want it, let them write it and specify the terms. You just need to read it to make sure that it doesn't limit your ability to continue giving the code away.
I'd let them pick the dollar amount for the licensing fee, too. Tell them to make a proposal, on both fee and terms, and you'll decide if it's acceptable. Odds are they'll offer you terms and money in roughly the same ballpark as what commercial software of the same type would cost.
Be certain that you own 100% of the code though. You don't want to get yourself in trouble for selling someone else's property.
Re:Dual-license (Score:3, Informative)
(4) Profit.
(5) Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect profit.
Re:Charge a monster price (Score:3, Informative)
Take the BSD 3-clause license and change the name to something like " developer license", then agree to license your code under said license for $x, where x is a reasonable amount. Basically they are paying for your written acknowledgement that the code is yours to give away and that if there are any copyright problems they know who to blame.
First, I work for the government, and software licensing impinges upon my duties.
There's a lot of FUD out there. There's a lot of restrictions against 'freeware', but people get 'freeware', 'open-source', 'ad-ware', etc... All confused.
There's two reasons for being against 'freeware' - many are distributed as closed-source economically unauditable binaries. This leads to difficulties in gaining code security - the government can go after microsoft if they deliberately put a back door in their software, but some dude who published some freeware MP3 player? The second is maintenance - they don't want to become dependent upon unmaintainable software. It happens anyways, but if you're paying some company money, generally you get a warranty.
Open source? Again - maintenance is an issue, but at least we could hire our own programmers to maintain the software if required. The second is that some licenses require any code that uses the open source modules to be open source as well, and well, that's just not happening with some software. Other software the government is just fine with releasing.
Last is copyright concerns - they don't want copyright lawsuits. So they want an actual license, even if they have to pay for it. Some 'freeware' licenses are only free to individuals - if a business or branch of government wants to use it, they have to pay for it.
"Forgidding Open Source"? (Score:4, Informative)
Are they stupid? As Apple can clearly demonstrate, the BSD license is non-toxic. You should tell them to tell their legal staff to do their homework (and justify their paycheck) to learn the differences between one open source license and another. Simply banning all open source licenses is as stupid as declaring all muslims as terrorists.
From the other side (Score:1, Informative)
The company I work at paid $10k to the author of a GPL program to be able to use its code in our product. If they want to a non-BSD license you should be happy to get a local lawyer write something closed for them and charge them $10kUS for this silliness. You can probably get some money upfront in good faith to cover your costs of writing this up.
My only advice would be to make it for version 2.x or whatever your current major version is so you can both make money off of next version and don't find yourself tied to this agreement forever.
Re:BSD (Score:3, Informative)
What benefit does BSD give you over PD, really?
Author credit.
Re:Dual-license (Score:3, Informative)
He's not asking if it's possible. His question, in part, was: "... are there examples of such licenses that I can provide?" In other words, has the text of a closed source license been open sourced such that anyone can use if for their closed source licensing needs?
Re:Dual-license (Score:3, Informative)
Well, I was speaking as the licenser.
And the name of the license doesn't matter. It's the legalese that does.
Advice on making a commercial contract (Score:5, Informative)
Some companies will register the software purchased as an asset, and that is the procedure they must follow. They need a contract that specifies the license terms. There also has to be someone they can complain to, or contact to make improvements, or at least explain some code so they can make improvements (if you allow that). This is their procedure for operating business responsibly and that's fine.
Also as someone else mentioned, they might have to have their legal department, or paid external lawyers, analyze carefully an open source contract for viral bits. If they can write the contract for you it is easiest but make sure it contains what is shown below. Or you could use a template on the web.
People here telling you to tell them to buzz off if they won't accept BSD, etc. are not in business, and that's what is scary. Open source programmers need to be able to make a living in order to support doing their open source work, so a company asking you for a commercial liscense for that exact work you have already done is fabulous! Unless you have a job where you are paid to write open source software, this is ideal I should think. More like that and you wouldn't need to do other commercial work, right?
A commercial liscense costs money; no real company buys software for $1. The code may be exactly the same as the free version, it is okay to charge money for it.
All you need to do is make it easy for your client to purchase the a non-exclusive liscense to your product. This is actually an opportunity for you. You can make some money now, have a possibility for a support contract or more commercial work in the future, and you can say the code is used in a commercial product, which speaks of its quality.
Things you should specify (off the top of my head - maybe you can find some more information elsewhere):
Your (or your company's) name and address, and theirs. At the bottom, your name and the person on their side, with signatures.
Disclaimer of your liability: That the software is provided on an as-is basis and you the vendor have absolutely no liability for any defect in it, nor for any losses that may ensue through its use, or its legality in some jurisdiction, nor it is intended for illegal uses, or use in mission critical applications, etc. There is plenty of boilerplate around you can find that says this. (Assuming they are just buying something of yours and they aren't hiring you to create something for them. If they were, you'd have to guarantee against fatal-level defects, and that it meets a carefully agreed-on specification. Things like behavior in a cluster, usability on a certain architecture, 64-bit, Y2K or security related vulnerabilities would then require you to maintain it. You should add in it that any work to make improvements or repair bugs will be charged separately.)
The price. Charge them a reasonable price for it, this is a commercial license and you can include some support with it. If you include 10 hours support for free then maybe $1000 is okay, or more it depends on what the amount of code is of course. Charge for additional work you do at a certain hourly rate too if you want. Maybe you could discuss that here. You could sound them off about the price verbally. Priced beyond a certain threshold will make the decision get booted up higher.
The deliverables. Usually they need something physical. Make a CD with a nice label, write a short instruction manual, and print it out on paper (also included as a PDF or text file inside the CD). The CD and manual are physical assets that they can put in the vault and have available for software audits.
Your responsiblity to support them. You may be tempted to say support is free forever, but don't do that, it costs you your time and they want value. Say limited support for a short amount of time and if they want it you can make some separate consulting or support contract with them.
If they are paying you then you can afford to provide them with support to get up and running, or to discuss wit
Re:What? (Score:3, Informative)
IINAL, but doesn't the GPL explicitly exclude any code provided as part of the Operating System and standard libraries. This allows you to use Microsoft Visual C/C++ and not require Microsoft to open up their msvcr**.dll binaries. This allows you to build GPL code on Windows or Solaris without requiring the Operating System to be GPL.
With Windows, Microsoft provide an SDK so that you can target programs for it. Likewise, WiiWare has an SDK it uses to target that platform, so I don't see what the problem is (unless they statically link parts of the WiiWare operating system (i.e. not to shared libraries running on the OS) into the games via the SDK).
Re:BSD (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Advice on making a commercial contract (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dual-license (Score:1, Informative)
Re:You just defined WGA there. (Score:3, Informative)
You agreed to WGA though. They tell you from the outset that their product will cause you pain if it determines (correctly or not) that it has been obtained illegally. Sneaking a backdoor into a product is different.
Re:Dual-license (Score:3, Informative)
The only problem that MySQL is having with its licensing model is that Monty is a fucking idiot who wants to have his cake and eat it too. I'm sorry, you sold it. It's not yours any more. What you want no longer matters. Now shut up and go away.
If only life was that simple. He did not sell it to SUN, the MySQL shareholders did of which he was only one of them. Monty had not been a majority shareholder since he went for venture capital support in 2001.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySQL_AB [wikipedia.org]
Did he gain anything from the sale? Of course, but he had no real say in it.