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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] open source non commercial license
  • Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2007 08:44:11 -0500

On Friday 09 February 2007 08:11 am, Emerson Clarke wrote:
> > > So in the last two days ive built a website and cleaned up 250,000
> > > lines of code to get a release out before the end of the week :)
> > >
> > > For those who are interested you can check it out here:
> > >
> > > http://reasoning.info/examples.htm
> > >
> > > And you can download it here:
> > >
> > > http://reasoning.info/download.htm
> >
> > Emerson, I wish you success with your efforts. It has been quite a ride
> > so far... ~;-)
>
> Cheers.
>
> > Just a heads up - from this link:
> >
> > http://reasoning.info/license.htm
> >
> > " The commercial license also gives you access to all of the features
> > which are not included in the open source version."
> >
> > I personally find it a turn off and a red flag when projects do that. It
> > causes me to doubt their commitment to Free software. It does not always
> > keep me from the project, but if I am choosing between two, it can make a
> > big difference.
> >
> > I invite others to comment as well for your benefit.
>
> Ok, i can see that point of view.
>
> I hope that the usefulness of the framework will outweigh such
> concerns for most people, and to be honest there isnt really a lot of
> competition.
>
> >From a commitment perspective, this is my first real foray into the
>
> world of open source and i hope that people will appreciate the 5
> years of work ive put into this.
>
> I think its unusual for such a framework to be produced by one person
> and i have to juggle my desire to go open source with the need to pay
> my rent and uphold existing commercial commitments which have allowed
> me to get where i am.
>
> I don't have a day job, i am lucky enough that this is what i do full time.

That is nice. Now, even with GPL code, if you get feature requests, etc. from
people/corporations, you can do the additions for a fee.
>
> > Also, since you are going down the dual licensing route, you need to
> > develop a plan for contributions. You are going to need for people to at
> > least give you some sort of writen license to their GPL contributions,
> > otherwise, if you do build any community of contributors, the GPL version
> > will quickly outstrip the commercial one which I would not mind, but
> > which would defeat your purpose.
> >
> > In light of the fact that if you start getting contributions, your income
> > from your non-free (commercial is not really the best choice of words
> > here as you can easily be commercial on the free side as well) licenses
> > will start to be based off of their work as well as your own, you might
> > want to think about a plan which would give some of that income back to
> > your contributors according to some published plan. I know of no other
> > dual license projects which do this now, but some may indeed be doing it
> > without my knowledge. If not, you could set a trend.
>
> Initially i wont be asking for contributions, and i am aware of the
> penalty that i pay in terms of community becuase of this. But right
> now i could not accept any such contributions without a copyright
> disclaimer so im happy for it to be a one way street.

This is within your rights, but you do run the risk of a fork.
>
> I think this is a standard problem with dual licensing, but i had
> thought that perhaps i could provide some kind of guarantee that in
> exchange for copyright i will give a certain percentage to the free
> software foundation, or some other open source cause.

That could play.
>
> I cant imagine how royalties for individual developers would work, its
> so hard to assess the value of any one contribution.

You could (or certainly I could) dream up all sorts of plans, from the simple
to the wildly complicated. My wife tells me I gravitate towards the latter
even when I make an effort at the former.
>
> Keep in mind that my plan is to use a flat rate license of around 10
> pounds per individual/employee.
>
> This model keeps the commercial code very close to being donation ware
> for most users. Only large corporations would pay hefty fees, and for
> open source purists hopefully it is so close to being spare change
> that it will not scare too many of them away.
>
> > I see you are making your gpl code available for download at not cost. I
> > think this is wise, but just for your and everyone else's information who
> > may not know this yet, this is not a legal requirement. You could very
> > well charge per download or for the first download every month or
> > whatever. Trying this may greatly reduce your uptake, but it is legal.
>
> Really ? ... how does that fit with the provisions the GPL makes for
> distribution.
>
> Or is it a case of being able to cover reasonable costs, like hosting ?

Nope. Many people don't seem to get this. (Everyone, feel free to correct me
if I am wrong here and I am the one who doesn't get it.)

You can sell GPL software. Every time a copy of a GPL program passes from you
to another person, you can charge them a price or a fee. (With a small
exception.)

So, you can make them pay for every copy that they get from you. What you
can't do is try and charge them licensing fees on the copies they make for
themselves from the copies they get from you.

What you charge them for getting copies is up to you and them - the market.
This amount is in no way related to costs.

Where does the confusion come from? Where does the idea of reasonable costs
come from? Remember that small exception I mentioned above? If someone gets a
binary from you without the source, (and this may not apply to the original
authors, but it would hardly be GPL software if the original authors refused
to ever give out source!) you have to give the source out upon request by
any third party which would be the person who got the binary from you or any
other person. This is where you cannot charge what you want. This is where
the reasonable cost related restrictions kick in.

So, if someone really wanted to charge what they wanted for every "sale" of
GPL software, they would need to hand out source only or source and binary
combined. If they ever hand out a binary on its own, then they have to
provide source to that binary under the reasonable costrestrictions to anyone
from then on for three years. everyone from th
>
> > Also, in our back and forth, I got the idea that perhaps you thought some
> > of your stuff might benefit from patents.
> >
> > I thought you might be interested in what Don Lancaster writes on the
> > subject:
> >
> > http://www.tinaja.com/patnt01.asp
>
> Thanks. Personally i disagree with "software idea patents" as RMS
> would call them. I don't think they benefit the industry.
>
> But i im a little more flexible when it comes to truly unique
> algorithms with commercial value like PageRank, though the uniqueness
> of any algorithm is debatable.

Have a look, you may find it interesting.
>
>
> Emerson

all the best,

drew
--
(da idea man)




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