A discussion of hybrid open source and proprietary licensing models.

[Mike Linksvayer <ml AT creativecommons.org>]

Marshall Van Alstyne wrote:
> At 02:30 AM 8/20/2004, Rob Myers wrote:
> > > 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.
>
> I'd fully support this.

I think two distinct ideas are being confused:

- A license with (more or less) variables and conditionals which can be 
used to generate actual licenses.  The existing CC licenses may appear 
to be generated in this fashion, but my understanding is that they are 
not.  CC doesn't generate custom licenses, it provides a limited set of 
stock licenses.

- Use of CC's coarse-grained license metadata to describe non-CC 
licenses (NB we already do for GPL _and_ LGPL, and Wikipedia has been 
publishing CC-style metadata for GFDL in its page metadata for a few 
months).

> > 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.

Ok so far.

> > Anyone contributing to the Open Version knows 
> > full well their work will be sold, so is unlikely to contribute more 
> > than bug patches.

I suspect this is misleading.  Are you saying developers outside MySQL 
AB don't make non-bug patch contributions to MySQL?  And this is because 
people don't like MySQL selling proprietary licenses?

AFAICT the reason people buy proprietary licenses rather than 
contributing to the open version is so that they can sell their own 
proprietary software that includes code from the open project.

> Your second point is actually where I think much of the meat is.  
> Suppose we could write a license so that a person contributing to the 
> Open Version could be confident that a 3rd party wasn't selling the 
> value that he or she created?

I Rob's examples above a 3rd party wouldn't be selling the code, rather 
the 1st party (single vendor that owns the codebase) would.

> Everyone could use it but no one is 
> charging for it.  Wouldn't he or she be more likely to contribute?

To an extent this is the motivation for copyleft, but rather than 
prohibiting commercial use, it requires the code be kept open.  A simple 
"you can't sell the software" requirement seems really primitive in 
comparison to copyleft.

> > > 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.

Or there would be sales during the proprietary period to customers who 
need new features ASAP and there would be contributions during the 
proprietary period from developers who know that their code will be free 
in the not-to-distant future.  AFAICT Artifex does exactly this 
successfully with Ghostscript.  See <http://www.artifex.com/licensing/>.

A few developers have suggested to me casually that CC ought to have a 
"Founder's Copyright" project 
<http://creativecommons.org/projects/founderscopyright/> for software 
with a much shorter monopoly period.  One of those developers has posted 
about it, see 
<http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?msp:8552:fjedblbemkibalcomejd>.

Marshall, are you on the Free Software Business mailing list 
<http://www.crynwr.com/fsb/>?  If not you should check it out their 
archives and invite people from there to give input here.

--
  Mike Linksvayer
  http://creativecommons.org/learn/aboutus/people#21