From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 4 13:27:18 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7122C37B401 for ; Sun, 4 May 2003 13:27:18 -0700 (PDT) Received: from heron.mail.pas.earthlink.net (heron.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.189]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 912B143FBF for ; Sun, 4 May 2003 13:27:16 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from pool0293.cvx40-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net ([216.244.43.38] helo=mindspring.com) by heron.mail.pas.earthlink.net with asmtp (SSLv3:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 3.33 #1) id 19CQ4p-00055c-00; Sun, 04 May 2003 13:27:16 -0700 Message-ID: <3EB5774D.535E5611@mindspring.com> Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 13:25:49 -0700 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Gary W. Swearingen" References: <3EB4D079.26872.32A7E84C@localhost> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ELNK-Trace: b1a02af9316fbb217a47c185c03b154d40683398e744b8a43af7eef52af19d4392a3aee7c105e67a2601a10902912494350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c cc: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: open source license with 24 month proprietary clause X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 20:27:18 -0000 "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