On 2020-01-07 10:54 a.m., Richard Fontana wrote:
By "this" I think I mean "offering a more permissive
free software
license in return for money, with no other strings attached". That's
essentially the scenario, right? When has that ever been done though?
(I am aware of something arguably analogous to this but only involving
the GPL.) If I was the would-be copyleft inequality vendor I wouldn't
try something so reckless (from a business standpoint). The vendor is
banking on the customer being unlikely to exercise their BSD rights
because of, essentially, something akin to sunk costs?
I read this exchange and I think I followed it all, even
Bradley's initial points with NDA mention.
I can't predict or read the minds of the business owners, but the
premise seems worth worrying about to me.
A BSD license with an NDA around the sale of it would mean:
- the business *could* publish under BSD and share with the world
- but they'd be barred from answering the question, "how did you get
this under BSD??"
- and that awkwardness could have various lawyers saying that the
business should limit activities that would prompt such questions
(including providing any public BSD derivative projects)
The NDA scenario from the original licensor's view could be about hiding
their undermining of copyleft and discouraging the BSD licensee from
publishing derivatives.
Anyway, separate from the NDA, a business with a BSD license that they
never share has comparable advantage as having a proprietary license to
make derivatives. They have an incentive to not share under BSD in order
to have exclusive ability to make proprietary derivatives while
competitors are stuck with copyleft.
---
Aaron Wolf
Snowdrift.coop