Hi Frank, That's a great post (and the Mailpile post is also a great discussion of the topic), thanks for sharing.
The GPL already has a clause which allows the owner (and downstream user) to defer, for 12 months, the full obligations of GPL - see this guy's take: https://github.com/zooko/tgppl/blob/master/COPYING.TGPPL-v2-draft.rst Our idea is a bit more startup-friendly - on the commercial side of the dual license, everyone can keep their improvements/extensions closed for up to the full duration of the time-bomb, but they then have to give it all back. As to enforceability, I'm guessing copying the language of GPL is hopefully sufficient. These things are rarely tested as far as I know, but I'm sure someone knows better than me. Appreciate the feedback, Fergal On Fri, Jun 5, 2015 at 12:53 PM, Franklin M. Siler <m...@franksiler.com> wrote: > On Jun 5, 2015, at 0517, Fergal Byrne <fergalbyrnedub...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > An old-school C++ dev and I have started an initiative to combine the > best of Open Source with a limited commercial license. It's not a new idea > - MySQL creator Monty Widenius thought of something less viral in 2013 [1]. > > > > The Time-Bombed Open License [2] is the commercial side of a > dual-licensed project, best paired with something strongly viral like GPL. > Essentially, the project owner has 2 (up to 4) years to commercialise their > product and then must go fully Open Source. The license is viral, so any > commercial licensees must also use the TBOL and eventually open up their > derived products. > > > > One major idea is to foster a culture of disruption of exploitative > industries. If you can develop software to disrupt in your local market, > your innovation can be used similarly by others elsewhere, and each new > startup can improve on your work while earning their keep. Eventually, all > derived products become Open Source and are free to all. > > > > We'd appreciate any comments, feedback and assistance from the wonderful > Clojure community - we're up on twitter at @OccupyStartups. > > I’ve written a lawyer friend who does more than I do with licensing; I > teach in this area but don’t normally advise clients on it. I would be > concerned that a court might not apply the license as intended, but then of > course- you’d have to analyze whether these things ever wind up in front of > a judge. > > This timed scheme seems like an overcomplicated way of achieving the > desired result. It would be simpler, and less restrictive on the dev, to > simply escrow your source. If you should become unable to support the > software, the escrow agent is directed to publicize the source. > > I wrote a bit more about related issues for Mailpile: > http://franksiler.com/on-choosing-open-licenses/ > > Frank > > > > Franklin M. Siler > Counselor at Law ||| franksiler.com > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Clojure" group. > To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com > Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with > your first post. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Clojure" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Fergal Byrne, Brenter IT http://inbits.com - Better Living through Thoughtful Technology http://ie.linkedin.com/in/fergbyrne/ - https://github.com/fergalbyrne Founder of Clortex: HTM in Clojure - https://github.com/nupic-community/clortex Author, Real Machine Intelligence with Clortex and NuPIC Read for free or buy the book at https://leanpub.com/realsmartmachines e:fergalbyrnedub...@gmail.com t:+353 83 4214179 Join the quest for Machine Intelligence at http://numenta.org Formerly of Adnet edi...@adnet.ie http://www.adnet.ie -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
