[License-discuss] licenses for hosted services

[Miles Fidelman]

On 8/5/16 5:02 PM, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Miles Fidelman (mfidelman at meetinghouse.net):
>
>> Seems to me that this is an open source business model, just not one
>> where all things are free.
> Sorry, no.
>
> This comes up quite a bit, and Engel Nyst gave back in 2013 the answer
> I'd give, so here's his answer:
> https://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss/2013-December/018777.html
>

There are those who disagree, myself included.  (And what makes Engel 
Nyst the last word on such matters?)

The OSD says:
"The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away 
the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution 
containing programs from several different sources. The license shall 
not require a royalty or other fee for such sale."

There is a large gap between "selling or giving away the software" and 
running the software.  I'm not talking about any restrictions on 
distributing the software.

And, I might note, that the OSD definition is somewhat more specific in 
referring to "as a component of an aggregate software distribution 
containing programs from several different sources."

Miles Fidelman

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.  .... Yogi Berra