Re: [ox-en] non-commercial software lic
- From: august <august alien.mur.at>
- Date: Sun, 9 May 2004 15:13:35 +0200 (CEST)
On Thu, 6 May 2004, august wrote:
just thinking about the creative commons licenses....and I like the
non-commercial version a lot.
Why?
because i think it could protect floss programmers from exploitation. the
biggest problem I see with open source software is how to generate revenue
to get a project up and going. I don't think it's going to fit under a
capatolistic model. I would love to see floss wares treated like art
and culture are treated in middle and northern europe, where projects are
funded based on content, not on sales....but realisticly speaking, I doubt
that's going to happen any time soon.
what I'd like to do is keep my software open, so that others can share
from my ideas as I have from theirs. But, I don't want my apps to be a
part of Mac OS X's downloadable tools and I don't want the US military to
use my stuff either. The chances of the two happing for me is rather
slim, but the point is one of control. I don't want the "free" in free
software to mean that anyone can do whatever they like with it.
let's say you are working on some high-level motion tracking stuff. this
is inherently militaristic, but you have other intentions for it. You'd
like to release the code (especially because it was built on other floss
software), but you don't want the local police to use it to track citizens
on the street, and you don't want Mac OS X using it to track the users who
sit down in front of their I-pods...etc....and since you worked for months
on it, you probably don't want either one to use it without paying.
that's kinda what I am thinking of.
It places a lot of rather problematic restrictions on the content.
wouldn't any license? isnt that the idea?
First, it makes it impossible to distribute as part of a larger whole for
which something is paid (for example as part of a linux distribution).
for cases such as a linux distro, special permission could be granted.
could even be in the license.
Second, it is legal trouble since the definition of what is 'commercial'
can be stretched to fit the view of whoever has the most expensive
lawyers. For example, is putting it on a web page with ads 'commercial'?
let's say yes, it is commercial. if they are making revenue off of your
work (like how mac is making money on gcc)... I think they should pay.
just my thoughts and paranoia -august.
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