Hello, On Tuesday 23 August 2005 21:16, Timo Neuvonen wrote: > Just a few badly organized comments that came into my mind follow: > > but I am very reluctant to create a Bacula entity in the US > > > > In addition, some Europeans may object to the US government > > having information on funds transfers to them. > > > > As a consequence, I would like to exhaust the possibilities in some other > > English speaking countries before going to the US -- e.g. England, Malta, > > Belize, Ireland, Isle of Mann, Gibraltar, ... > > With Bacula's roots in Switzerland, and taking into consideration the > arguments cited above, how about running the foundation and setting the > license fees in some other currency but USD? Switzerland doesn't use Euros, > but maybe it could be one choice, if you wish to highlight the non-US > status of the foundation.
If there is a foundation, it will probably be in some English speaking country so that the by-laws are in an "International" language. Yes, the Euro is an idea, but I'm not trying to totally eliminate the US -- just not get involved in their paperwork and databases ... > > > By the way, I have added a tier fee structure as suggested by one user > > to the OpenSourceFunding document. The fees step from $100 to $500 > > depending on the gross revenues. > > Since there are licences, and upgrade licenses, what is the difference > between them? Would a upgrade license be required when a) new version of > Bacula is released b) user needs a new package of the same version of > Bacula for a new version of eg. Red Hat? Or both a) and b) ? > > Would a license fee for a binary package also mean an unwritten promise > that the licensee can expect also the next releases of Bacula be packaged > for the same architecture/distribution, although no support is promised? > > How about the next release of the same op-sys distribution, is it then > reasonable for the licensee to expect that there also will be a working > packaged version of Bacula? > > I think they are cases that should be thought of in advance, and included > in the licensing terms. Good points, I'll try to clarify them all. I assume you know or pretty much know the answers already. If not, please ask. I will say, that there are no guarantees about anything (no future product, ...), except that the source as released at the same time will always be available somewhere. > > > Couple of ideas about the tier structure: > > - maybe there could be a low-end free-of-charge license class, say for > companies below 0.1 million? This would make more easy to find the limit > between home user and business user. This way a home user that occasionally > does some part-time work with his/her home gear, would not feel quilty for > not paying a license. Yes, good idea. Thanks. > > - the suggested tier system climbs rather quicly to $500, but makes no > difference between 5-million company and billion-class company running > business in several countries. Maybe a site license per a single > georaphical address, or a tier system based on the number of client > computers backed up (maybe independent of architecture) could be another > way? Yes, I thought about such things too, but it all gets very complicated fast. The idea is stay as far away from a commercial venture as possible but to "encourage" donations. Hopefully asking for more would not be necessary. This is meant to be a way for Bacula to perpetuate itself. If I see it making money or losing money, then I'd be tempted to reduce the fees or try some ideas like what you suggest. > > How about a tier system of eg. 1-3 computers (typically, a desktop, a > laptop, and a server ) for free, and the next tiers eg. 4-10, 11-20, 21-50, > 51-100, 101-200, 200+ clients per site. Number of client computers reflects > the revenue of the company anyway, and it is more common licensing scheme > than asking for revenue info. This is too close to commercial type pricing for me, and could not be easily enforced either. I have nothing against the idea, I'm just trying to be *extremely* modest in my requests. $100 is not excessive even for an individual and $500 isn't either but is a nice little contribution even if it came from IBM. > > http://www.bacula.org/OpenSourceFunding.html says about non-profit > entities: "---- > Any of these exempt entities would lose their exemption if they pay in any > way for installation of Bacula (this probably needs a lawyer to define > correctly...) > ----" > Yes, it would require a lawyer. The entity is paying for installation also > in the cases when there is an in-house person who is getting his monthly > paycheck for miscellaneous IT support, whether part-time or full-time. > Out-of-house consultants or pre-installed system suppliers are sometimes > very similar to in-house staff, things may chance overnight when some > operations are outsourced. > > How about research departments within universities, that are doing research > work ordered by commercial entities? It's still under the name of the > university, but the whole research team for a certain project may get all > the funds from a strictly commercial company. Actually, universities seem > to traditionally have special rules for licenses, but if a license may be > paid by contributing, that's often what universities may do. So, is there > really a reason to specifically mention universities in license terms? I probably would never want to charge a University -- they do not generate revenues (in general -- some do as you mention), and they tend to make their software available under very non-restrictive licenses -- they are much like many Open Source users/developers. If they do generate money, it is usually put back into the education system. However, governments do generate revenues, lots and they get bigger and bigger and consume more and more, so if they pay for consultants, they can pay for Bacula, otherwise, they really are non-profit. One major point that I had not thought of is that any binaries under such a license could not be distributed on Source Forge. This Source Forge has confirmed. This is really no big problem, but it might also mean that the project as a whole will have to move off of Source Forge. I just asked this question, so it will be interesting to hear what they say. Everywhere the terms of usage of Source Forge and other such places talk about Open SOURCE. I have seen no reference to binaries, so there seems to be a sort of undefined area out there concerning what I am proposing. In any case, the idea did not go over well with them. José Luis what would the best (least disruptive) way be for me to get Debian's reaction to this? -- Best regards, Kern ("> /\ V_V ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
