[thelist] [OT] how to grant a commercial license.

Kasimir K evolt at kasimir-k.fi
Tue Nov 29 04:03:11 CST 2005


VOLKAN ÖZÇELI.K scribeva in 2005-11-29 09:29:
> Well  I will charge (a fair amount) of money for commercial use. My
> products are currently not my primary job function: So I do not aim to
> gain money for their uncommercial use.
> 
> However if someone earns money through them I think it would be right
> to request a fair amount of money back. I don't talk about thousands
> of dollars here. Just a fair amount for the work and effort I put
> forward.

This brings me to think that
1) you allow free non-commercial use (and thus the software is 
downloadable for all)
2) not your main business - so you want to minimize the stress and hassle

A dual license might be the easiest then: keep the current CC license 
there, and add another, where you
- claim copyright
- disclaim responsibility
- require payment for commercial use  (paypal might be handy)

This would require the least amount of work, you just add another 
license on the site where the software is downloadable. You wouldn't 
have to deal with individual licensees/users. And you wouldn't enforce 
the license in any way, but would trust peoples' honesty - which you do 
already.

Certificates, client specific licenses etc. are a lot of work. And still 
dishonest persons would use your code without ever telling you, let 
alone paying.

It's on the web, so it's in a way "free", "out of your control". So I'd 
imagine that a very simple licensing scheme would give the best 
work-and-time/reward ratio.

And IANAL and others know a lot more about licensing than I do, but I'm 
good at finding routes of least effort ;-)

.k



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