Choosing the right license

[kmself at ix.netcom.com]

on Thu, Nov 02, 2000 at 08:22:13AM +0000, Charlie Stross (charlie at antipope.org) wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 02, 2000 at 11:02:59AM +0000, David Johnson wrote:
> > 
> > If the license forbids charging customers for any service that is theirs to 
> > provide then it will have a very tough time being approped as either OSS or 
> > FS. To translate your wishes another way, you want "to make it difficult for 
> > Redhat to include your software on its distribution".
> 
> That's not the goal. What I want to do is to make it unpalatable for a
> company who wants to install the software on a public server and
> charge the public for using it. Distributing the source code in any
> way, or using it for your own purposes, is fine: I just don't want to
> see it turned into a proprietary ASP.

Is the concern someone making money from the software, or their using
(and possibly modifying) the software without redistributing services?

The GNU GPL has several built-in assumptions which were largely valid in
1984, but which have changed over the intervening 16 years.  Compiled
languages are no longer the only viable programming environment.  Common
object models are intruding on what used to be shared library space.
I'd argue that the ASP problem isn't quite new, it's somewhat similar to
the smart-server, dumb-terminal environment common in the 1980s, but it
clearly does effect the source distribution triggers of the GPL.

Rather than attacking a model which makes the software valuable (hence:
desireable) to user and vendors, why not look at resolving the source
distribution triggering events instead?  In the GPL, this is a
distribution of binary code or derivative code.  In the ASP instance,
the problem is likely to be resolved via the public display or
performance rights restricted (to authors) under copyright.

> I figure that ASPs like .NET are the next big threat to open source,

s/threat/opportunity/g

It's a challange.  It's not an insurmountable one.

> insofar as they lock customers into a vicious circle of renting their
> applications while being unable to dig their data out and take it
> elsewhere. 

Lock-in *is* an issue to be addressed.  It's clearly a motivator to some
of the ASP business plans I've seen.  However, assuming rational
markets, the opportunity then would be to show that a portable, open,
ASP model stands to gain competitive advantage over closed competitors.
There's plenty in the service, support, and follow-through aspect of
this service which has nothing to do with lock-in.

> I therefore want to deter people from using this software as an ASP by
> requiring ASPs to make it glaringly obvious to users that they're
> being charged for using something that's free. 

> I don't care about Redhat's distribution because they're not running
> the software on a pay-per-use basis on behalf of the customer --
> they're selling media and support.
> 
> Any ideas?

IMO you've got a means/ends mismatch in your last paragraph.  The
problem isn't being charged for something that's free -- because that's
not the case.  Hardware, support staff, electricity, and 'Net
connections cost real, hard, cold, cash.  The software itself is free.
The infrastructure on which it is deployed on is not.  If you want to
address lock-in, look to another mechanism.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>     http://www.netcom.com/~kmself
 Evangelist, Zelerate, Inc.                      http://www.zelerate.org
  What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?      There is no K5 cabal
   http://gestalt-system.sourceforge.net/        http://www.kuro5hin.org
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