Re: Selling Artistic License Software
On Tue, 18 Nov 1997, Ian Jackson wrote:
> The sentence that seems to me to be the basis of the problem is here:
> 5. You may charge a reasonable copying fee for any distribution of
> this Package. You may charge any fee you choose for support of this
> Package. You may not charge a fee for this Package itself. However,
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> you may distribute this Package in aggregate with other (possibly
> commercial) programs as part of a larger (possibly commercial)
> software distribution provided that you do not advertise this Package
> as a product of your own.
Quoting now from earlier in the Artistic license:
"Reasonable copying fee" is whatever you can justify on the
basis of media cost, duplication charges, time of people involved,
and so on. (You will not be required to justify it to the
Copyright Holder, but only to the computing community at large
as a market that must bear the fee.)
> The sentence is problematic because it is vague. What does it mean to
> `charge a fee for this Package' ? What precisely is being paid for ?
> Remember that software itself cannot be bought and sold like ordinary
> property (text in the DFSG notwithstanding). A fee might be either a
> fee for the act of distribution, or for granting a licence to use the
> program.
>
> My view would be that that sentence is intended to make it clear that
> you can't charge for licenses or permission to use Perl, or for other
> rights to do with it. If it is interpreted as meaning that you can't
> charge a copying fee for media containing only the program then it
> would directly contradict the first sentence of s.5, which even uses
> the word `any' to strengthen its scope.
>
> The final sentence is IMO a further clarification, rather than an
> exception.
--
Scott K. Ellis <storm@gate.net> http://www.gate.net/~storm/
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