Licensing: Difference between revisions

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* It's not as strict as the GPL because it doesn't grant trademark use.

===Non-commercial ~~licenses~~===

==Source-available software==

Some ostensibly "free and open-source" software licenses include, or can be modified to include, an extra provision designed to prevent the software from being used for commercial purposes of a specific nature or of any kind, e.g. the sale of software and/or hardware to turn a profit. Since this is a fairly explicit example of restricting who can use a piece of software and for what purpose, '''it disqualifies the software in question from being considered FLOSS'''~~, even if the developer still makes the source code readily available to the public.~~

This is a term typically used to refer to software which doesn't strictly count as FLOSS, even though the source code is readily available to the public. Two of the most common subcategories are:

===Non-commercial software===

Some ostensibly "free and open-source" software licenses include, or can be modified to include, an extra provision designed to prevent the software from being used for commercial purposes of a specific nature or of any kind, e.g. the sale of software and/or hardware to turn a profit. Since this is a fairly explicit example of restricting who can use a piece of software and for what purpose, '''it disqualifies the software in question from being considered FLOSS''':

<blockquote>''“"Free software" does not mean "noncommercial". On the contrary, a free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. This policy is of fundamental importance—without this, free software could not achieve its aims. [...] We must conclude that a program licensed with such restrictions does not qualify as free software.”''<br/>

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Whatever reason the dev gives for a non-commercial clause in the software license, it ''should'' be of no consequence to the average end user who's just running a free emulator on their PC for their own use. Some specific circumstances, such as a developer who's making a brand new commercial game for an old system and using an emulator to test it in lieu of real hardware, ''might'' be exceptions to this, but that's where it gets pretty murky from a legal standpoint.

===Open-core software===

Sometimes developers choose not to release the entire source code for their projects, and instead only allow public access to ''some'' of the source code while keeping ''other'' parts closed-source. Usually, the core functionality of the program is what becomes source-available while certain bells and whistles remain proprietary, hence the term "open core". One notable example of this model is seen with the GitLab project, where GitLab offers a paid Enterprise Edition with certain extra features compared to the freely available core code in the Community Edition.

While there's some debate as to whether the stripped-down, fully source-available versions of these programs could count as FLOSS, the model as a whole is undoubtedly not fully in keeping with the ideals of the open-source movement, and it's generally considered a compromise between wanting to sell the software and wanting to allow outside contribution and/or code reuse.

==CLA (Contributor License Agreement)==

@@ Line 103: / Line 103: @@
 * It's not as strict as the GPL because it doesn't grant trademark use.
-===Non-commercial licenses===
+==Source-available software==
-Some ostensibly "free and open-source" software licenses include, or can be modified to include, an extra provision designed to prevent the software from being used for commercial purposes of a specific nature or of any kind, e.g. the sale of software and/or hardware to turn a profit. Since this is a fairly explicit example of restricting who can use a piece of software and for what purpose, '''it disqualifies the software in question from being considered FLOSS''', even if the developer still makes the source code readily available to the public.
+This is a term typically used to refer to software which doesn't strictly count as FLOSS, even though the source code is readily available to the public. Two of the most common subcategories are:
+===Non-commercial software===
+Some ostensibly "free and open-source" software licenses include, or can be modified to include, an extra provision designed to prevent the software from being used for commercial purposes of a specific nature or of any kind, e.g. the sale of software and/or hardware to turn a profit. Since this is a fairly explicit example of restricting who can use a piece of software and for what purpose, '''it disqualifies the software in question from being considered FLOSS''':
 <blockquote>''&ldquo;"Free software" does not mean "noncommercial". On the contrary, a free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. This policy is of fundamental importance&mdash;without this, free software could not achieve its aims. [...] We must conclude that a program licensed with such restrictions does not qualify as free software.&rdquo;''<br/>
@@ Line 118: / Line 121: @@
 Whatever reason the dev gives for a non-commercial clause in the software license, it ''should'' be of no consequence to the average end user who's just running a free emulator on their PC for their own use. Some specific circumstances, such as a developer who's making a brand new commercial game for an old system and using an emulator to test it in lieu of real hardware, ''might'' be exceptions to this, but that's where it gets pretty murky from a legal standpoint.
+===Open-core software===
+Sometimes developers choose not to release the entire source code for their projects, and instead only allow public access to ''some'' of the source code while keeping ''other'' parts closed-source. Usually, the core functionality of the program is what becomes source-available while certain bells and whistles remain proprietary, hence the term "open core". One notable example of this model is seen with the GitLab project, where GitLab offers a paid Enterprise Edition with certain extra features compared to the freely available core code in the Community Edition.
+While there's some debate as to whether the stripped-down, fully source-available versions of these programs could count as FLOSS, the model as a whole is undoubtedly not fully in keeping with the ideals of the open-source movement, and it's generally considered a compromise between wanting to sell the software and wanting to allow outside contribution and/or code reuse.
 ==CLA (Contributor License Agreement)==