Open source shareware?

[Karsten M. Self]

on Fri, Nov 09, 2001 at 07:27:43AM -0500, Ken Brown (kenbrown at erols.com) wrote:
> Karsten,
> 
> I you lost me on this.  Why does time determine the terms of a sale?

It doesn't, that's my point.

There is in the proposed license a fee contingent on "use" at some time
following acceptence of the agreement.  Some would say this is charging
not based on sale or transfer, but on use of the program.  I would say
it's a "try before you buy".  The fee is triggered by the initial
adoption (sale or transfer), plus some time T.  

The attempt to key this to continued "use" rather than transfer has no
standing under copyright as previously stated.  Failing the "use"
binding, I see it as falling back to, essentially, a fee to the original
author mandated by all third party recipients of the program, violating
OSD term #1.

Consider further:  if the source is adapted into another program, the
original program no longer being present in its original form, the
payment clause would remain in force.  Widespread use of this practice
clearly contradicts the rationale offered for term #1:

    Rationale: By constraining the license to require free
    redistribution, we eliminate the temptation to throw away many
    long-term gains in order to make a few short-term sales dollars. If
    we didn't do this, there would be lots of pressure for cooperators
    to defect.  

I see violation of both letter and spririt.  The license is not OSD
compliant.

> Ken Brown

IANLA, TINLA, YADA.

-- 
Karsten M. Self <kmself at ix.netcom.com>       http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
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