IPL as a burden

[Manfred Schmid]

Hi Mark,


[...]
> sendmail.org, apache.org, abisource.com, etc. etc.

Whatever they are working on, at the end of the day everybody has to pay
his bills. That applies to Open Source Developers as well. 

Developing software requires a serious amount of investment concerning
time, money, brain etc.

If enough enthusiasts are willing to pledge that investment, fine. This
has brought Linux, Apache etc. to where it is now and it has been a
great job.

But this does not scale to the extent needed in the future. For a
company, an investment has to pay off. The Support & Consulting approach
may work well for established products like Apache etc. for the time
being.

But who will fund the investments in future? Designated sponsors
forever? Enthusiasts pouring time in it to allow BIG companies to do the
Support & Consulting thing?

We are proposing a new structure to give a commercially viable answer to
a simple question: Who pays the developers?

The answer is simple as well: We do! (see below)

> Those are only 2 of the 4 basic freedoms.
> There is also the freedom to redistribute copies, as well as the freedom
> to improve the program and release your improvements to the public.

If you want to redistribute it, go ahead.

If you want to change it and release it, great.

All we are asking for is a clear distinction between stuff released by
us and stuff made by somebody else (same with GPL).

If you have improved our code (bugfixes, added features etc.), check out
the developer program. We charge money, but we are willing to PAY for
contributions on the other hand.

> 
> Your license violates those freedoms.
> 

We are preserving the freedoms mentiones above and give a developer the
chance to pay his bills. Do you think that this is such a bad idea? When
thinking about paying developers, you have to know where the money comes
from. 

Any company we are working for produces something. They know, that a
product has a price and software is no exception to that. We therefor
think that Licence Fees seem a quite appropriate answer to the money
question.

Unfortunately, we must not ask for these, if we would use GPL. As CFO I
could not finance a developer program and give the guys out there their
fair share.

This is why we think, that (another) License is needed: IPL

Best Regards

Manfred Schmid
CFO

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