I'm developing a pretty unique software product, which I believe can be useful for professionals in organizations. I spent a lot of personal time on it and it would be great if companies could pay/donate for it. On the other hand, I definitely would like to go open-source, so community would be able to help me to improve the project in the long run.
I see that it is encouraged on GNU website, and some companies actually would be happy to donate to OSS products providing them business value, if that would be legally allowed and easy to do.
What I don't understand is how actually I can make it work?
The best idea I came up with is to offer 2 options on the website:
- PERSONAL LICENSE KEY (any donation, removes "buy me" text in the status bar)
- COMMERCIAL LICENSE KEY (let's say $50, removes "buy me" + I provide priority support and feature requests)
Is this a correct way to sell it? Are there any better ways to do that? Which of Open Source licenses is better to use for this purpose?