On Oct 23, 12:07pm, Thomas Mondoshawan Tate wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 23, 2001 at 08:28:02AM -0700, Nathan England wrote:
> > Isn't this kind of what happened with Tux Racer?
> > It sounds good to me, now if I could learn to code, I'd even help!
> >
> > nathan
>
> Actually, according to their website, it's released under the GNU GPL -- no
> modifications at all. What I was proposing was to develop the software
> first, then sell the thing as a commercial app that people can modify for
> personal use. The minute they want to use it for commercial gain, they have
> to pay us a license fee. Mind you, we wouldn't let the datafiles out for
> free -- you'd need to buy a copy of the game for those.
You can still do the same thing with the GPL so long as you are the
copyright holder. You can release a piece of software under the GPL
and reap all of the usual benefits from doing so. But you, the
copyright holder, may also license this software to others (for
commercial gain, etc.) under some other license which doesn't have
the same restrictions as the GPL. (I.e, the licensee won't be forced
to redistribute his propriety changes.)
There are several problems with "personal use only" licenses:
1) It is sometimes difficult to differentiate between personal
and commercial use.
2) External contributors may choose to put their efforts elsewhere
given the nature of the license. I.e, while it's true that the
source code is available, the modified code isn't truly useful
in all settings which may make it less appealing to work with.
3) You are likely to incur the wrath of the open source / free software
communities if your license is not open/free enough.
Kevin
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