A discussion of hybrid open source and proprietary licensing models.

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

On 19 Aug 2004, at 23:35, Marshall Van Alstyne wrote:

>  In a sense, the proliferation of licenses is itself evidence of needs 
> going unmet.

IMHO proliferation has more to do with fine-tuning and project ego than 
with needs that could be met by "just one more" license or family of 
licenses.

> Note that one goal is to create not just a hybrid, a proliferation, or 
> dual license but a "meta" license -- a clean format with parameters 
> like those of a software subroutine.  With one set of parameters you 
> might get BSD, with another you might get GPL, etc.

This sounds like the CC license approach. CC already describe the GPL, 
so possibly adding BSD and LGPL to the CC descriptions would be a 
better approach that reproducing them.

> One problem with a "dual" license is the occasional difficulty of 
> combining contributions made by either side -- open versus 
> proprietary.  Contributors to the open version don't necessarily want 
> their efforts sold, while contributors to the proprietary version want 
> to earn a living.  This versioning problem represents a kind of 
> forking that we think can be avoided by a better license.

IIRC this isn't how dual projects work. With MySQL, QT, Berkely DB, the 
codebase is written and owned by a single vendor and dual licensed on 
the basis of this. People buy a proprietary license so they don't 
*have* to contribute. Anyone contributing to the Open Version knows 
full well their work will be sold, so is unlikely to contribute more 
than bug patches.

> A different example is Sun Star Office and Open Office.  The products 
> exist side-by-side and it's not apparent that the features of one are 
> a superset of the other.

Star/Open office is a political move by Sun against Microsoft. It 
cannot be analysed in an Open Source vacuum, as this will not capture 
the full value or dynamics of the situation. IIRC proprietary licenses 
had to be stripped from Star to make OO, and they are now separate 
projects

> Another take on solving this problem might be a variant on the dual 
> licensing approach.  This would be a switch from side-by-side to 
> before-and-after.  A contribution could start life as proprietary 
> code, becoming open after a short delay.  Contributions made under the 
> open model would always be open.

This would simply combine the worst features of both models. No sales 
would be made during the proprietary period, no contributions would be 
received during it either. This would result in an Open Source, 
non-commercial model but with built-in time inefficiency, reducing Open 
Source's efficiency in creating value.

> One goal is finding an answer to the continuing question "How do you 
> build a business around open source?"

Since this is Creative Commons, don't you mean Open Content? There are 
many existent examples of business and Open Source. Most Internet 
business is based on Open Source. Apple have based their current 
operating system on Open Source. Computer Associates have recognised 
that their only hope to continue with some of their products is to Open 
Source them.

>  I've spoken with several large corporations that remain wary of 
> current licenses.

IMHO this is an educational problem, not a license problem.

> Dual licenses seem tolerable but complex and the number of successful 
> companies using them is small.

Open Source is still new. As more people come to understand it, and to 
think imaginatively about it, the number will grow. And dual licensing 
is not particularly effective, it's more a comforter for old-thinking 
vendor and consumers than a genuine Open Source business model.

> A second goal is to put as much software under the open source model 
> as possible, where users can gain free access to it.

I hope you mean free-as-in-freedom, not free-as-in-beer. The list 
description confuses free with non-commercial. Open Source is not a 
loss leader.

> Rephrasing, the goal is to raise the welfare of those who use software.


Again, this sounds an inappropriate aim for Creative Commons, whose 
focus is content.

> This might happen if either (i) existing proprietary code could is 
> re-licensed or (ii) new code is developed at a faster pace under a 
> better license.
> A third goal is to enumerate licensing tradeoffs then to put them into 
> a simulation model of a socially optimal license.  The code for this 
> would of course be fully open.  A simulation would move a debate over 
> licensing tradeoffs into a kind of recursive open science where the 
> design of systems for developing code becomes an open social construct 
> in code.

This would be very interesting. I would say that of the points raised 
in the slides, only one is not answered optimally by the GPL.

- Rob.