Dual Licensing Woes

[Darrin Chandler]

On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 05:28:09PM -0700, Joshua Zeidner wrote:
>   Recently I have run into yet another company who is 'dual licensing' a
> GPL based code base.  In my estimation, none of the principles that these
> companies base their business on is sound.  In essence, they are somehow
> reserving special rights to a GPL project, and selling those rights as a
> product( typically packaged with support services ).  In many cases, I am
> obliged to publish any additions I make to the code base( as is proper to
> the GPL ), but under some unstipulated clause they are allowed to sell
> rights not only to the code base, but to the additions that I have committed
> back to the 'community'.  Something doesn't make sense here, and the real
> basis of the problem is there is no legal precedence in this area at all.
> It almost feels like a scam that is harnessing the public energy and input
> towards personal( or corporate ) profit.  Once the code is GPL it is public
> and no person or entity reserves the right to license the code in any way(
> at least that is my understanding ).
> 
>   Has anyone used a dual license scheme successfully?  or dealt with a
> company such as the one I describe above?  Did you buy the 'commercial
> license' version of a GPL project?  Were you happy with the product?

<insert usual IANAL disclaimer/>

GPL is based on copyright. The copyright holder has ALL the rights, and
may assign them however they wish. If they choose to offer it as GPL,
then of course they are bound by that (being their own agreement by
their own choice), but that *doesn't* mean they can't also license it
other ways.

So, you get a copy under GPL because they must provide it. Now you are
bound *only* by the GPL.

So, you agree to their OTHER license in order to get support,
proprietary extensions, or whatever. They, as the copyright holder have
every right to do that. They can even offer you that OTHER license in
place of the GPL (people license their copyrighted works under different
terms to different people all the time, and always have). So, it MAY be
that if you have agreed to the OTHER license that you are NOT under GPL
at all.

Not knowing anything (even the names) of the product, company, or
licensing terms... who knows? It all depends on that other license.
But... are you being used? Probably not in any way that is against the
law. Do you *feel* used? Probably, and probably justifiably so. A
company led you down a rosy path uttering magic "open source" words
when, if fact, they were lying rats. Surprise! We're only playing at
open source for PR and to get people to code for free!

I hope this works out well for you in the end, or at least that you
found out the deal before you spent a lot of time and effort.

-- 
Darrin Chandler            |  Phoenix BSD Users Group
dwchandler at stilyagin.com   |  http://bsd.phoenix.az.us/
http://www.stilyagin.com/  |