Re: rsaeuro license change?
On Thu, 2002-08-08 at 06:30, RSAEuro General wrote:
> > The second problem is in Item 2, (ii,iii, and v), which restricts those
> > who may wish to use the software for profit. These restrictions render the
> > license incompatible with Free Software guideline 6, which prohibits
> > discrimination against fields of endeavour.
>
> This element is a tricky one however, as we've mentioned RSAEuro is also a
> commercial product, the 1.04 release is often used by licensees as a
> initial stepping stone into the commercial product, therefore preventing
> them using RSAEuro in commercial applications maintains our business. Any
> assistance on this point would be helpful.
One possibility is to, instead of restricting commercial use, make your
license (at least somewhat) 'viral', like the GNU GPL, and require
source releases of anything which uses RSAEuro. This will _not_ restrict
commercial use, but many potential commercial users will not want to
release the source to their application and at that point you can say
"You can pay us for a more "friendly" license."
This, incidentally, is the way Sleepycat, the company who develops
libdb, works. You can find out more at
http://www.sleepycat.com/licensing.html .
Thanks!
--
Joe Drew <hoserhead@woot.net> <drew@debian.org>
"This particular group of cats is mostly self-herding." -- Bdale Garbee
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