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by somatic
2562 days ago
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Here's the text of #6: "The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research." My thought is not to restrict anyone from doing anything. Rather that, for example, any profit-seeking entity can use any code, but that that profit-seeking entity must pay a standard and proportional fee to the license-holder of that code, generally its author(s) and/or maintainer(s). Does that qualify as "restricting anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor"? Going by the wording, I would lean toward "no". Furthermore, while on that page I glanced at the other paragraphs, and I couldn't help but notice that according to #9: "License Must Not Restrict Other Software" and its text: "The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.", the GNU/GPL don't qualify as "open source" software. It is to laugh. |
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Well, so you are effectively restricting the field of endeavor. People who want to do business with the code licensed this way can no longer do so without having to pay while all others still can use the code freely. I don't think there's much room for interpretation as to whether this fulfills the term "discrimination".
What you can do instead is dual-license your code, offering more "favorable" terms in a second proprietary/commercial license to businesses. However, this usually comes with the caveat that licensees of the commercial license can now do proprietary changes without having to give them back to the community.
> the GNU/GPL don't qualify as "open source" software.
> It is to laugh.
What? I am afraid you are misinterpreting the text and/or confusing the terms of the General Public License. This says you should not place restrictions on the licenses of other software contained on the same medium. It doesn't say anything about derivative work. Why would this mean the GPL doesn't qualify as an open source license?
Here's a list of all OSI approved licenses: https://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical