Open source shareware?

[Chris Gehlker]

On 11/8/01 9:05 AM, "Forrest J. Cavalier III" <mibsoft at mibsoftware.com>
wrote:

> Can someone point out the OSD violation of a shareware
> license such as the following?  I realize it violates
> the spirit of the OSD, but I cannot find where it violates
> the "letter" of the OSD.  The OSD is silent on "use" and
> I think this illustrates the problem.
> 
> Russ Nelson has indicated that the specific wording of the OSD
> is important.  Can we find a way that the OSD rejects this kind
> of license?
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>
> As long as this permission notice and disclaimer are included, any
> person obtaining a copy of this software may distribute this
> software or derivatives.
> 
> If you decide to run the software after a 30 day evaluation period,
> you must pay a fee of $20 to <copyright holder.>
> 
> THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
> EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
> MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
> NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
> HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
> WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
> FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
> OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
> 

This seems fine to me. It gives me the right to derive a program by, for
example, changing the about box; slap my own copyright on the derived
program; and  distribute it without the demand for money.

I've seen this point discussed at length before. As long as the source is
open, it doesn't matter what someone wants to charge for the binary.

I would certainly include the original copyright notice but preface it with
a new copyright notice stating that users of my derived version don't have
to pay anybody.

Of course most users would just run my free binary without ever looking at
the source.
-- 
C++: The power, elegance and simplicity of a hand grenade.

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