For Approval By: S-GPL

[zhihang wang]

Thank you very much, experts.
I'm only a programmer and not a lawyer. So it's difficult for me to define a
right license.

I think there are some problems in the open source license such as the
famous GPL which perhaps restrict the open source software development.
Because it's difficult to find a proper business model under this license.
First why someone would like to contribute to the project under this
license? How many time he would dedicate to this project? Little money he
could obtain from this great work. How the programmer to make living ?
Thus someone can only contribute to this project in their SPARE TIME.

Secondly, some license, like Q license, is unfair for the open source
community. The contributors can't get any thing from this project. But the
QT company can benefit from the contributors very much.

Third, many companies can use the open source project freely, such as
google, to make profit. But who will like to denote so much money to the
contributors?

So I think the license should protect the contributor' interest. This is why
the signature is needed.

The contributors to the project can be classified to member, senior member,
fellow according to their contribution. Every contributor can have signature
different number of license.  For example, the member can only signature 1
license. The fellow can signature as many license as he can.

Commercial usage must obtain a copy of this license with one copy of their
product.
The contributors of the project can sell their signature to make living.

If one member want to become a senior member, some senior member or fellow
should vote to agree with his contribution.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 2:54 AM, Bruce Perens <bruce at perens.com> wrote:

> John Cowan wrote:
>
>> Doesn't work here:
>>
>>
> I agree.
>
>> Non-profit or contributor:  GPL
>>
>>
> Isn't it:
>
> Non-profit: GPL
> "Enterprise" Contributor: Apache
> "Enterprise" Contributor with signature: something else, not stated.
>
> Not that the text is all that clear.
>
> To turn this into a working license strategy, it would be GPL for everyone
> and commercial license (rather than Apache, which is transitive to all
> downstream users and thus breaks his strategy) for contributors.
>
> Since OSI doesn't approve commercial licenses, I don't see that there is
> any work for OSI here.
>
> He would also be well advised to vest the copyright in ONE entity that
> could issue commercial licenses. Getting everyone to sign every time is
> impractical.
>
>   Thanks
>
>   Bruce
>



-- 
Best Regards
zhihang wang