On 25-02-2017 14:44, Paul Boddie wrote:
...this is almost like asking for business advice
Don't get me wrong. It is not my goal to make money. My goal is to make
free software libraries.
You have to remember that Free Software is all about end-user
empowerment. If
a user gets a binary that gives them none of the privileges of Free
Software
then it doesn't matter in practice what went into making that
software: they
are being denied the ability to participate in controlling what that
software
- the actual thing they obtained, not part of it - actually is or does.
Where a scheme advocates putting proprietary software in front of
users, it is
not going to get the support of the FSF, because even the LGPL is
effectively
a barely palatable concession to the idea that Free Software might be
used in
proprietary software under certain circumstances. I don't think you
should
expect the FSFE to take a different position.
That's the nature of a software library. It can be used in many
different contexts - free as well as proprietary.
If a company wants to make a piece of proprietary software for a
specific purpose then they will do so no matter what. If they can't use
my GPL library they will find another way. It is not realistic that we
can coerce them to make their software free if their business is to sell
software. But we can make them contribute to funding free software if
this is cheaper for them than making their own library from scratch. My
project doesn't need any funding, so the money can go to some other free
software projects (which might ultimately outcompete some proprietary
software).
The dual license system for software libraries that I am proposing will
serve two purposes:
1. It gives open source projects that use the library an advantage over
proprietary projects using the same library.
2. It generates a revenue that may be used for funding other free
software projects.
If a library uses GPL only, it will make an incentive for somebody else
to make a proprietary alternative to the library (which will possibly be
so similar to the free code that we would have a nasty battle over
possible copyright violation).
If we use a more permissive license (Apache or BSD) then we will allow
proprietary code makers to free ride and make money on our open source
work without contributing anything in return.
I think that more attention should be given to funding mechanisms for
Free
Software.
This is indeed what I am proposing. The problem is that we need an
organization to handle the money.
I think this is an unresolved issue in the open source movement. How do
we deal with software libraries and other pieces of code that can be
reused in proprietary software (and is so valuable that private
companies will pay for it).
For what it's worth, you could look at what existing businesses have
done in
this area already. There have been several companies that have offered
dual-
licensing schemes, and some of them may even have offered something
resembling
what you are trying to achieve.
But I don't want to make a company - I just want to make code
/Agner
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