[cc-licenses] open source non commercial license

Dana Powers dana.powers at gmail.com
Mon Feb 5 13:36:48 EST 2007


On 2/5/07, Emerson Clarke <emerson.clarke at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I was only quoting from some sources i read recently, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_and_GPL_licensing


I think that article could use some major clarification and cleaning up:

"The GPL requires the software to always be free..."

That's not true.  It requires that source code be distributed (or at least
made available) with object code, and it permits further redistribution by
users/distributees on the same terms.  There are no requirements one way or
the other about (1) pricing or (2) types of use, although the distribution
restrictions no doubt influence choices about both.  Whether you think these
restrictions make the GPL licensing system more compatible with "freedom" is
an entirely separate question.

CC licenses don't address the object code / source code distinction, so they
usually are not recommended for software licensing.  But the license that
comes to mind for what you're looking for is one of Microsoft's Shared
Source licenses, particularly the CLI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source#Microsoft_Shared_Source_Common_Language_Infrastructure

It goes without saying that licenses like these have been shunned by the
free-software and open source communities because they are very skeptical of
usage restrictions (neither seem particularly fond of CC-NC).

Dana
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