Software licensing

[Karl Core]

I built an open source CMS for bands to use a while back and just released
version 1.0.
It isn't the best thing in the world, by far, and was my first venture at a
CMS at all, but it has some great features for bands.

Someone just contacted me to say he wanted to modify it and sell it. Anyone
have any experience with this? I was thinking of asking for a lump sum up
front and a small % of each sale (which would be hard to prove).

TIA for any advice

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

I built an open source CMS for bands to use a while back and just released
version 1.0.
It isn't the best thing in the world, by far, and was my first venture at a
CMS at all, but it has some great features for bands.

Someone just contacted me to say he wanted to modify it and sell it. Anyone
have any experience with this? I was thinking of asking for a lump sum up
front and a small % of each sale (which would be hard to prove).

TIA for any advice

depends on what license model you are going to release it. If you have
it under the GNU/GPL then they might sell it and the source has to
remain open source.
GNU/GPL understands 'free' in the sense of 'freedom' but not price.
Hence someone can sell their (changed) version at a price, but they must
ensure that the source code is publicly available for anybody else (with
added information who has changed the source and when).
For the GNU/GPL see:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

If you are going to sell it on a per copy license base, then I am
afraid, you will have to drop the OS part of your CMS. Then it's under
copyright protection and you will be the sole owner of the CMS, having
the right to sell it at your own conditions.


HTH
bernhard

 

[Leif K-Brooks]

I built an open source CMS for bands to use a while back and just released
version 1.0.

Someone just contacted me to say he wanted to modify it and sell it. Anyone
have any experience with this? I was thinking of asking for a lump sum up
front and a small % of each sale (which would be hard to prove).

If it's really under an open source license as defined by the OSI [1],
then you can't legally require him to give you a dime for redistributing
it under your license's terms. You can charge him for initially getting
your software, but if it's already been released, that will be hard to
do; he could legally get it for free from anyone who already has a copy.

You could ask for him to be nice and give you some money, of course, but
there's nothing forcing him to.

[1] <URL:http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php>

 

[Jim Higson]

depends on what license model you are going to release it. If you have
it under the GNU/GPL then they might sell it and the source has to
remain open source.
GNU/GPL understands 'free' in the sense of 'freedom' but not price.
Hence someone can sell their (changed) version at a price, but they must
ensure that the source code is publicly available for anybody else (with
added information who has changed the source and when).
For the GNU/GPL see:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

There is an exception, that the original creator may also licence their
software to someone else under a licence other than the GPL. In this case
the OP could charge for version of the code under some other licence, where
the buyer would be allowed to make derivatives without releasing
modifications to the code.

It also depends what the OP means by trying to sell it - are they actually
selling server software, or charging to set up websites which use it? Of
course, the later is perfectly consistant with open source licencing.

You could also charge the person wanting to sell the software for you to add
features, if you're still interested in working on the project. If he's
setting up web services it'd help him to have the developer of the CMS on
his side.

If you allow a non-free branch, it'll not gain from user participation in
making it better, and so it could end up being worse than the freer,
original program. Of course, if it has a small userbase, a free software
project won't have many outside contributors anyway so this might not
matter.

 

[Andy Dingley]

If it's really under an open source license as defined by the OSI [1],
then you can't legally require him to give you a dime for redistributing
it under your license's terms.

Actually you can (but he might be a fool to agree to it). His licence
as distributor to the licensee (users) of the program doesn't do this,
but that makes no requirements on _your_ licence to _him_.

Suppose that "Arthur the distributor" reckons there's a business in
offering an open-sourced CMS for free, with hourly-charged
customisation time being sold to some of the users that use it and
think that they need it. You, as the developer, want to make money
from your labours. It's entirely possible that you strike a deal with
Arthur so that he pays you a few groats for every copy distributed by
him (i.e. he loses money on every one) and he makes revenue from
selling the services that he provides to cover this. This is more
"direct" than taking a slice of Arthur's revenue, as "you're getting
paid for your work" and "Arthur is getting paid for his work".

The risks here are that Arthur pays for one download and may never
distribute another copy (everyone downloads from his mate Terry, who
is of course free to offer them. Terry might have been that only
downloader). You lose out.

Another risk is that your product is so wonderful that everyone
downloads and uses it, but it's so easy to customise that no-one ever
needs Arthur's customisation skills Arthur loses out.

 

[Richard]

I built an open source CMS for bands to use a while back and just
released
version 1.0.
It isn't the best thing in the world, by far, and was my first venture
at a
CMS at all, but it has some great features for bands.

Someone just contacted me to say he wanted to modify it and sell it.
Anyone
have any experience with this? I was thinking of asking for a lump sum
up
front and a small % of each sale (which would be hard to prove).

TIA for any advice

Sure thing dude. I'll sell you a copy for $100 and you can give me 10% of
your sales.
If he sells your work, even with slight modifications, as his work, then you
can slap him with copyright infringement.
So be sure to copyright the software before you give it to him.
It has to be properly registered to lay claims on infringement.

 

[Leif K-Brooks]

If it's really under an open source license as defined by the OSI [1],
then you can't legally require him to give you a dime for redistributing
it under your license's terms.

Actually you can (but he might be a fool to agree to it). His licence
as distributor to the licensee (users) of the program doesn't do this,
but that makes no requirements on _your_ licence to _him_.

Right, except that Karl says that he's already let the cat out of the
bag by releasing his product under an open-source. At that point, anyone
can distribute it with or without charge to anyone else under the
terms of the same license.

 

[Toby Inkster]

I built an open source CMS for bands to use a while back and just released
version 1.0.

If you wrote the entire thing yourself, without using any code from other
sources, then you're free to issue it to this buyer under a different
licence.

If you, say, included code from an existing GPL (or similar licence)
project, or another contributor sent you some code for inclusion under the
assumption that the project was GPL'ed (or protected by a similar
licence), then you wouldn't be able to relicence it -- you could sell a
copy to this guy, but you'd have to do so under the terms of the GPL (or
whatever licence you were using).

 

[Bernhard Sturm]

There is an exception, that the original creator may also licence their
software to someone else under a licence other than the GPL. In this case
the OP could charge for version of the code under some other licence, where
the buyer would be allowed to make derivatives without releasing
modifications to the code.

that's true, but I reckon that this the GNU/GPL community is generally
not amused about such business models. Is this correct?