Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 13:25:49 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: "Gary W. Swearingen" <swear@attbi.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: open source license with 24 month proprietary clause Message-ID: <3EB5774D.535E5611@mindspring.com> References: <3EB4D079.26872.32A7E84C@localhost> <rusmru1qyr.mru@localhost.localdomain>
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"Gary W. Swearingen" wrote: > Have I heard of an open-source license where the license to derive > does not take effect until after 24 months? Not exactly, but... > > I've read in -chat that the Softupdate code had a relatively severe > license for a while, but I don't know if that was built into the > original license, or handled by a scheduled license change. It was not allowed to be shipped by default, as it had a "no commercial distribution" clause to allow Whistle time to amortize its investment, and to allow Kirk to protect his. The time limit was spelled out in the contract, but not explicitly in the license. As it turned out, we let it go out sooner than the term. Even so, individuals were not prevented from using soft updates, even when the machine was being used for commercial purposes (e.g. Matt Dillon's "Best Internet" used it for a long time on their servers, but they didn't sell servers with it precompiled on them, so it was OK under the license). That's hardly "severe", IMO; we could easily have just kept it proprietary to Whistle. -- Terry
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