"Free Distribution" question

David Woolley forums at david-woolley.me.uk
Sun Aug 17 18:53:44 UTC 2008


> 
> In my particular case, distributions of the software in any form for profit
> would require a license with my company. 
> 
> Can an OSI approved license work for me?

No.  The sphere of endeavour rules applies, not the one that you quote.

You are basically after a no commercial use licence, and such licenses 
are not OSI compatible.  (No commercial use is an ambiguous term; here I 
mean sale for profit - some people want a restriction on internal use as 
well.)  The mechanism that prevents huge profits is that any recipient 
can give away the same software, thus undercutting the initial supplier 
(in some markets that is unlikely).

The rule you are quoting is typically about things like share/freeware 
CDs or Linux distributions.  Some people have licences that do not allow 
  even charging for CD media, or only making a charge reflecting the 
cost of the physical media.  The rule is saying that such restrictions 
result in a licence that cannot be approved.

-- 
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.



More information about the License-discuss mailing list