Hi license-discuss members, I'm working on a research project with Open Tech Strategies and the Open Source Initiative, on the topic of delayed open source licensing.
This refers to licensing models where a project is initially published under non-open-source terms, but with a promise that the code will be relicensed as open source, with some delay or under some conditions, in the future. In some cases this may be a recurring practice where updated versions are continually relicensed on a specific schedule over time. Of course, license instruments that implement this strategy are not themselves open source licenses. But we thought it was likely that subscribers of this list would be familiar with examples of this practice and might be able to suggest some that we haven't identified yet. As Karl Fogel writes, > We’d like to gather as many examples as we can, both historical and > modern, for a whitepaper that will examine the effects of DOSP on open > source projects and on open source as a whole. The paper will take no > position in the paper on the desirability of DOSP; its purpose is to > provide accurate historical description and objective analysis. You can see examples that we already know about at https://code.librehq.com/ots/dosp-research/-/blob/main/notes.md and you can contribute any additional pointers by e-mail at <dosp-resea...@opensource.org>. Most replies should probably not be sent on-list to license-discuss, as we are not intending to suggest that these are examples of open-source licenses. (In my interpretation, one-off relicensing of formerly proprietary software under an open source license, that was not planned in advance, isn't the phenomenon that we're looking at. So, famous cases like Netscape Navigator, StarOffice, or Blender are probably not included here -- they simply weren't working with an intended "delay".) Thanks in advance for any suggestions! _______________________________________________ The opinions expressed in this email are those of the sender and not necessarily those of the Open Source Initiative. Official statements by the Open Source Initiative will be sent from an opensource.org email address. License-discuss mailing list License-discuss@lists.opensource.org http://lists.opensource.org/mailman/listinfo/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org
