Questions tagged [commercial]

Commercial activity is anything to make money. This tag is for questions about making money with Open Source / Free Software, or other interaction between open projects and commercial activity. Warning: Open Source / Free Software can be commercial as well. Do not use this tag to mean not-open-source. Use the [proprietary] or [closed-source] tags instead.

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How do I properly put third-party dependencies under MIT on my copyright notice for a published MacOS app on the App Store?

If IconCast is the name of a close-sourced app I'm publishing that makes money, and AppIconSetGen, an open source library under the MIT license made by someone else that I made some changes to (which ...
Charles Yiu's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
57 views

Can I use part of a MIT-licensed library as training data for an AI that will be used commercially?

Background: I am working on a business to provide support for independent musicians, and I would like to use this and this to essentially copy and paste this information as training data (I’m planning ...
Aiden K's user avatar
  • 13
1 vote
1 answer
76 views

Can I use CIS Benchmarks to create a product? [closed]

CIS Benchmark is freely distributed under creative commons licence which says "use as is". CIS has several assessment and hardening tools based on their benchmarks and all of them are paid. ...
PC.'s user avatar
  • 121
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

Gimp and Inkscape on Android: licensing (GPL?)

I have found the following apps on the Google Play store. They are traditional Linux apps for drawing, that are running on Android (with some modification to the source code, I believe). I would like ...
Joselin Jocklingson's user avatar
-3 votes
1 answer
137 views

Can I use Qt for closed source commercial software? [duplicate]

I am developing an application for geological research that I intend to sell for commercial purposes. With it I need a GUI too. I started using tkinter, but it seems to be, at least for me, somehow ...
Ian Kassling's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
77 views

Supply license information in a compound commercial product

Disclaimer: I'm not entirely sure if this is the correct stack-exchange for this matter. We're a small to medium company in the EU (about 70 employees). We develop and sell equipment and accompanying ...
flipflop's user avatar
-1 votes
1 answer
88 views

If I make extensive changes to open source software and open source my changes, can I charge for commercial use of the derived work?

Many of my original nonderived projects are on GitHub and some projects are licenced under BSD, MIT or GPL. They use languages like Python, C and Java. If I wanted to create a new product that was ...
Samuel Squire's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
94 views

How does commercial GPL software work in practice? [duplicate]

A small independent company develops an innovative product, licensed under GPL. A sizable investment of many months of R&D to bring the initial release, and a non-trivial cost to maintain and ...
dtech's user avatar
  • 479
3 votes
0 answers
99 views

Publishing GPLv3 code on Steam

I own a project called Luminol currently licensed under GPlv3 I'd like to distribute on Steam. If possible, I'd like to keep Luminol as GPLv3, mainly to ensure modifications of Luminol are public. I'...
Speak2Erase's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
211 views

Commercial usage of sentence-transformers/multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1

We are trying to use a HuggingFace Embedding model - multi-qa-mpnet-base-cos-v1 for an internal Large Language Model powered application. While reading the documentation it says (not verbatim): For ...
cannot_mutably_borrow's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
1k views

Do physical assets created directly from GPLed, copyleft digital designs (not programs or libraries) acquire the same license?

Situation: I use LGPL licensed software to create some digital assets that contain original designs. I don't modify the original LGPL software in the process; I just use it. The primary use of the ...
Life5ign's user avatar
  • 210
4 votes
1 answer
234 views

Can I notarize my MacOS package that contains LGPL dynamic library?

I am commercial software developer, and my piece of software dynamically calls the LGPL v2.1/LGPL v3 library. Am I allowed to notarize my installation package that includes LGPL dynamic loaded library ...
thirty's user avatar
  • 41
0 votes
1 answer
144 views

What type of license is protected my source from publishing the compiled product for free? [closed]

I am working on a commercial iOS application and recently I have made my mind to make it open source If I can find a proper license which fits my needs. This application is an end-product application, ...
willow's user avatar
  • 25
2 votes
1 answer
270 views

What is the best-practice for commercial vendors who build their offering on top of Open-Source software?

My company is currently developing a commercial software for our clients (it will be offered both under a commercial license for SaaS and also a binary for on-site private network usage). This ...
NextGen Metrics's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
181 views

GNU General Public License v3.0 Embedded Web Program Question

Say I have a program named X. If I edit X, I have to make the source code of X open source. If I have another program (say a web application) and I write my own code Y (which is closed source) and I ...
Titanium's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
97 views

QT on windows - limitations, restrictions, commercial products

I've downloaded the qt online installer from: https://www.qt.io/download-open-source to develop on Windows. My question is: as long as we respect LGPL are we forced to buy a commercial license (for ...
INS's user avatar
  • 103
13 votes
1 answer
3k views

MariaDB: How can the license being held by a foundation forbid Oracle from buying MariaDB?

I was looking though : Learning MySQL and MariaDB [ Russell J.T. Dyer / O’Reilly / 2015 ] where I came across a licensing Issue. It says [ Preface Section ] : "The software license, though, is ...
Prem's user avatar
  • 233
4 votes
1 answer
101 views

License GPLv3 scenario for a plugin A for Blender 3D and software B that communicates with plugin A. What is the license for software B?

I would like to create a plugin, let's call it 'A' for Blender 3D and a software let's call it 'B' that communicates with plugin A through the network. I know that Blender 3D has GPL license for the ...
panagiotis's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
76 views

Launching an application from another application

I have a GUI program that launches at start-up on a Linux machine. And this GUI can launch other applications like Spotify. I want to put this machine as a car's infotainment system of a vehicle that ...
nostack's user avatar
  • 13
1 vote
0 answers
149 views

Confusion about Licenses

I have confusion about how the GNU open source licenses and QT commercial licenses. In the QT's pricing page it says: Can I distribute Qt binaries in conjunction with my desktop or mobile application?...
nostack's user avatar
  • 11
3 votes
1 answer
270 views

Does LGPLv3 Tivoization apply to non "User Products"?

LGPLv3 section 4e: Provide Installation Information, but only if you would otherwise be required to provide such information under section 6 of the GNU GPL, and only to the extent that such ...
antitivoization's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
74 views

Can GPLv3 contributions to a separate project be used without attribution?

I recently forked a relatively new GPLv3 project on GitHub, as it had seemingly been abandoned not long after its creator had published it, and I wanted to make some improvements, as it was in a ...
waterfall123's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
71 views

Can I develop a video game or mod related to 3rd party artwork?

I'm developing a video game with many easter eggs and references to science, technologies, philosophy, and some movies, tv series, animated series, video games, franchises of fictional universes, ...
AivanF.'s user avatar
  • 111
-2 votes
1 answer
3k views

Can i copy MIT licensed code and then publish it as my own?

i have a question. Can i copy code (500 lines) from an open source python pip library under MIT license, modify the code and add my (100 lines) and then publish it as not open source and charge people ...
dismaaay's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
347 views

FFmpeg & AAC licenses & patents

I checked every AAC- and FFmpeg-related question on the entire StackExchange and it's not yet clear to me. In my project, I provide some audio-only content, encoded in AAC, to the end users. Some ...
Peter Samokhin's user avatar
1 vote
2 answers
3k views

PyQt5 Commercial License

Suppose I do the following: I code out a very small python program (like no more than five hundred lines of code): I download relevant packages about PyQt5, opencv, numpy, math and matplotlib at ...
温泽海's user avatar
  • 111
-1 votes
1 answer
4k views

Can I use Apache 2.0 for closed source product?

I have a Product "A" which is a closed source, i.e. the repository is private and wont want to make it as a public repository. Product "A" can also use/dynamically link Library &...
ossguy's user avatar
  • 11
2 votes
1 answer
68 views

Copy license terms from other product?

This might not be a very "open source" question, but I thought I might find in this forum the right people for the question. For a mortal human being creating a PDF with the license terms ...
Alvaro's user avatar
  • 397
8 votes
2 answers
1k views

Open source licenses and royalties

Many projects, e.g. GitLab, BitWarden, EasyRedmine, use open source software licenses. Their code is publicly available, and the services can be self-hosted. Of course they can charge users for ...
radix's user avatar
  • 247
0 votes
1 answer
71 views

Should I provide my source code if I use GPL source code combined into my subscription service code?

I've looked at other topics related to this question, but mine is quite different from others so I'm not sure about the answer. Let's say I am building a website that will provide SAAS for users. In ...
milenmk's user avatar
  • 101
6 votes
2 answers
2k views

How is 'commercial use' of software defined?

Licenses often distinguish between commercial use and non-commercial use. I found different sources discussing this topic: What is commercial and non-commercial? What Does Commercial Software Mean? ...
stackprotector's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
49 views

Why can't I distribute my application und a license of my choice when I accept contributions? [duplicate]

I have an app that I want to make open source, as in the literal definition of the code being public. Github says that if you don't apply a license, it's copyrighted by default. I want that, to be the ...
user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
56 views

How to respect user freedom when selling consumer software without services?

By "consumer software", I mean stand-alone software that an end-user would directly download and use on a desktop or phone. No business or corporation involved. I have read these questions ...
baqyoteto's user avatar
  • 159
0 votes
1 answer
2k views

Is using SheetJS free for commercial use?

I downloaded a version of SheetJS here https://unpkg.com/[email protected]/dist/xlsx.full.min.js It's basically a version of xlsx that allows me to export an excel document and allows me to manipulate data ...
WattMonki's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
44 views

How does software licensing works for Docker Images on commercial usage? [duplicate]

I want to develop and share an application for commercial usage (closed source only). This application only "lives" inside a Docker Image. This Docker Image is based an own Dockerfile which ...
Mario Ke's user avatar
7 votes
3 answers
2k views

Preventing commercial exploitation of small changes that require a lot of work

At my previous job I was responsible for building and maintaining a library in their ecosystem. The project is mature in the sense that no major new features are being implemented. It is still ...
user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
249 views

Can I sell an Electron application that use a library under Eclipse Public License 1.0 without disclosing the source code of the entire app?

I want to sell an Electron desktop application that uses a JS library under the Eclipse Public License 1.0 license. One of the conditions is to "disclose source". It's not totally clear to ...
tigrou's user avatar
  • 121
-2 votes
1 answer
75 views

Can I impose the requirement of a paid license if and only if my software is offered as a service?

I'm getting ready to open source a project that facilitates the deployment, maintenance, and orchestration of data platforms on just about any architecture (locally, on any cloud of your choosing, on ...
ticster's user avatar
  • 149
2 votes
1 answer
144 views

Package that includes a library file with non-commercial license

We are trying to use a package released by a commercial entity for use with one of their reporting software. I think it was closed source at one point then they converted it to a "Community" ...
blissfool's user avatar
  • 163
1 vote
0 answers
133 views

Dual license GPL/non-commercial + commercial SDK license

Looking to release an open-source SDK, all of which uses novel code OR dependencies that are MIT/Apache. For the business model, I would like to sell commercial-use licenses for use with the SDK, ...
Thomas Braun's user avatar
3 votes
2 answers
655 views

Is GPL copyleft triggered by distribution alone?

Would distributing a commercial closed source application along with a GPLd standalone binary, which the closed source application calls trigger the requirement to license whole app under GPL? (For ...
Andi's user avatar
  • 125
1 vote
1 answer
75 views

Dual Licensing for Artistic Software

Let's say I'd like to develop an end-user application with which you can create some kind of artistic work (say presentations or drawings). As a fan of the open source idea, I'd like to open-source ...
fameman's user avatar
  • 113
17 votes
4 answers
6k views

How can I deal with this (predatory?) scenario?

This question is related, but it is different to this one: How can I forbid shady resale practices? Scenario: Suppose that a small team or startup (company A), develops a good software project, which ...
guest's user avatar
  • 179
2 votes
1 answer
110 views

Is the Ender 3 V2 licensed under the same license as the original?

Somewhere in 2018, it was a big deal when Chinese company Creality made their Ender 3 printer 'truly open source', as acknowledged by the Open Source HardWare Association. See for example this YouTube ...
Mast's user avatar
  • 457
-1 votes
1 answer
71 views

Metaflac.exe and flac.exe license with commercial software

With this zip file, it contains both the metaflac.exe and flac.exe that I would like to bundle with software that I intend to sell. The license is here. https://xiph.org/flac/license.html I'm unclear ...
Ste's user avatar
  • 101
2 votes
1 answer
166 views

Can I use the output of a free for personal use software that requires a license for commercial use in an art project [closed]

As the title says, can I use the output, a jpeg image, of a software which states it can be downloaded free of charge for academic, government, nonprofit, and personal use, but which requires a ...
ArtistWannabe's user avatar
35 votes
8 answers
7k views

Under copyleft, why distinguish between "free as in free speech" and "free as in free beer"?

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around why copyleft libre software advocates say they advocate for "free as in free speech" software, rather than monetarily free software, when it seems ...
Lysanderoth's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
306 views

Company policy says no code under license requiring sharing source can be used. Stack Overflow is CC-BY-SA. Does this mean we can't use SO at work?

Training at work regarding software licensing instructed us that we should not use code from any project using a license that requires sharing modifications such as the GPL. We can use Linux as an OS ...
fdmillion's user avatar
  • 417
20 votes
3 answers
7k views

Can I relicense an abandoned GPL project if the copyright owners are no longer responsive?

Suppose I want to use GPL-copyrighted software in a closed-source project. With actively maintained projects I can contact the copyright holders to see if I can work out an agreement with them. But ...
Dmitry Grigoryev's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
47 views

clarify R licenses: machine learning models, developed with R in Azure, possible for commercial use?

i want to estimate machine learning models with R and i need to use it in a production environment, i'll work with Azure Datascience Virtual Machine or Azure Machine Learning. If i use , for ex., ...
martincr's user avatar

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