Dual licensing

[Marius Amado Alves]

> You started out talking about open source software.  There is
> absolutely nothing in the definition of open source software which
> requires it to be on an FTP site somewhere for public download.  Open
> source software which is not publically available is still fully open
> source.

I think the open source "way" requires public availability, technically, 
for bazaar-like development to take place. But I'll have to sleep on this.

> If you want to talk about something else, namely open source software
> which is available for anybody to download, then we can talk about
> that.  But that is a strict subset of open source software.  (An
> example of a commercial company which sells this subset of open source
> software is cheapbytes.com).

I'll check, thanks.

> There is no trick, except by your unstated definition.  If you think
> there is a trick, please point to the aspect of open source software
> which is being finessed.

Dual-licensing relies on a market need for closed source, and requires a 
'viral' license. If that's not "tricky", I'm Michael Valentine Smith.

> Direct sale as such does not violate OSD #6.  It would only violate
> OSD #6 if certain people were not permitted to buy it.  "No
> discrimination" does not mean "available to all;" it means "no
> specific restriction."

This interpretation of clause 6 seems radically different from the ones 
I've seen in the past, it seems more 'liberal', all in all 'better', and 
together with your first paragraph (also a more 'liberal' interpretation 
to me), it promises to make theoretically sound business models that 
were not sound before, at least in my mind. I'll have to sleep on all 
this. Thanks a lot.


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