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.
254
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How can free and open source projects be monetized?
Many open source projects I see involve having dedicated servers, as well as the expensive infrastructure that powers it. Many employ developers to work on the software full or part time.
What are ...
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73
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4
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Can I license my project with an open-source license but disallow commercial use?
I'd like to make my project open-source. Is there a free/open-source license that lets me do that, but disallows anyone receiving my project to use it for commercial purposes or monetary gain?
In a ...
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61
votes
3
answers
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Open-source license to prevent commercial use? [duplicate]
I could really use some help picking the right license for my project. The project is already released on github under the GPLv3 license but I have been made aware that this prevents uses that I want ...
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41
votes
8
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Can GPL licenced software be used in corporate environments?
If software is licenced under a GPL license, can it be used without restriction in a corporate/commercial environment? The software that I am refering to is QGIS which provides this description:
...
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35
votes
8
answers
7k
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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 ...
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32
votes
7
answers
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How is selling FLOSS packages for monetary compensation a viable strategy?
This question is about selling FLOSS and its source-code. According to Selling Free Software and commercial purpose, Free Software can be distributed with or without charge.
My friend asked me two ...
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28
votes
1
answer
63k
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Can I use a Apache v2 licensed driver for a commercial project without revealing sources of the project?
I am building a project that will be commercialised. One of the library I use is licensed under Apache v2.
To my understanding, if I modify the library, I need to give the source of the library with ...
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23
votes
5
answers
3k
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How to fairly distribute a sum of money among the most relevant FLOSS projects to a codebase?
I'm facing a dilemma. As a independent software developer and vendor, I code and sell the product of my work making some profit out of it. It's not much, it won't make me rich, but it's enough to make ...
- 341
20
votes
3
answers
7k
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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 ...
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17
votes
4
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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 ...
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17
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1
answer
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How can I license a YouTube commercial which includes CC BY-SA Licensed music?
Context: I'm making a YouTube commercial, which includes some music that's licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Would an audio-visual work constitute a derivative work of the music used in it, and (given the ...
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15
votes
3
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264
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Can paid-for Open Sourcing be a viable model for a freelancer?
Open sourcing doesn't necessarily mean that you give away your source code for free.
I am wondering about the business model where your code is made public, free for personal/hobby use, but with a ...
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14
votes
1
answer
682
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Selling a book based on CC BY-SA
My company would like to make a book mostly adapted from CC-BY-SA licenced text. I understand this is legal if we distribute the adapted text under the same licence. But what if we add to the book our ...
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13
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1
answer
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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 ...
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12
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4
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1k
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What are the advantages of making an open source project free?
I was trying to get a program when I found out that you had to pay for it. After some time I noticed that it was also open sourced. This confused me! After a bit more digging I found that I could ...
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4
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Red Hat acquires Ansible - why?
In October 2015, Red Hat acquired Ansible, the developer of the famous configuration management software Ansible, apparently for a price of about $100M.
Ansible, the software, AFAIK is licensed fully ...
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1
answer
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Can I use (statically or dynamically linked) mingw-w64 runtime libraries for commercial purposes?
I'm planning to use mingw-w64 for commercial software and I'm looking for info about it's licensing. I was looking through licenses included in package and some discussions on forums and mailing lists ...
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11
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1
answer
2k
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Is it possible to restrict GNU GPLv3 to non-commercial use only?
I've noticed that the jQuery plugin "Fancybox" has a peculiar licensing note in its header:
// Licensed GPLv3 for open source use
// or fancyBox Commercial License for commercial use
//
// http://...
11
votes
1
answer
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Sell software that uses libraries licensed under Apache Licence 2.0
I didn't find any definite answers on the web so I'm asking for a definite answer to the question:
Am I allowed to sell software that was written completely by myself except for the ZXing library (...
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10
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2
answers
1k
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Excluding open-source contributions from work-for-hire
I'm doing contract work. I'm being asked to sign a standard (AFAICT) agreement that assigns all intellectual property I create to the employer. The context of this work is typical Python and Go ...
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10
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1
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332
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How can I make a customer understand that free software involves some costs? [closed]
A common misunderstanding is that free software (replace the terms with "open source software" as you wish) will never involve costs. While this might be indeed true regarding you don't need to pay ...
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4
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What does it mean by "commercial support available" for an open-source platform?
Recently I was reading an article related to Anaconda in Python and it said that commercial support is available in Anaconda.
I have searched online but was not able to find a perfect answer.
What ...
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9
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4
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3k
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Can I charge expenses for a work under CC BY-NC-SA?
I have a 3d printer that I use to print some models. There is a model I like that is licensed in Creative Commons under the Attribution - Non-Commercial - Share Alike license.
I am not sure what "...
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9
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1
answer
987
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Can Commons Clause be used along with AGPL?
This article implies that Commons Clause and AGPL could be compatible, while FSF seems to completely disagree with that.
Can Commons Clause be applied on a AGPL project?
Some have misconstrued that ...
- 519
9
votes
1
answer
5k
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GNU AGPL/GPL 3.0 and Docker containers
So we have been discussing the implications of the GNU AGPL/GPL 3.0 license on our distributed code. I will make things, extremely simple. I hope. We will use AGPL in this example.
We will write code....
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9
votes
1
answer
2k
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Shipping GPL'd binaries in commercial product
I've read lots of discussion on shipping commercial products that link against GPLv2/3 libraries, and products that include code from GPLv2/3 software. But I haven't been able to satisfactorily answer ...
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8
votes
3
answers
1k
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Can someone re-license an adaptation of my CC BY-NC materials under commercial terms?
In the comments below this answer, it is stated that while there is no ShareAlike clause (that would be CC BY-NC-SA), you would not be allowed to re-license Adapted Materials under commercial terms.
...
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8
votes
4
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1k
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Usage of GPL program as optional external tool
My software is designed to use third-party external tools if the user wishes to do so.
Some users would like to use GPL-covered binaries as external tools (i.e. they tell my software "use this dll to ...
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8
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3
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533
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Can a free software (as in free speech) be not free (as in free beer)?
I was a bit puzzled when I read the description of Notepad++:
Notepad++ is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor
It seems to give room to the possibility that ...
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8
votes
2
answers
1k
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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 ...
- 247
8
votes
1
answer
3k
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Creative Commons license CC BY-SA doesn't work for commercial content?
I'm puzzled by the "share-alike" clause in Creative Commons license. This license allows free commercial use but "require[s] [] adaptations of the work to be released under the same or similar license ...
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8
votes
2
answers
1k
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PostgreSQL Licence for professional use ( postgres 9.4 / Visual studio 2015 )
I created an application for the company where I am doing my internship with Visual studio 2015, it should be connected to a Postgres server my questions are:
Can the company use the Postgresql 9.4 ...
- 183
8
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2
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2k
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Are there licenses which restrict sales/commercial use of software in UNmodified form? [duplicate]
I am working on a project whose source code I intend to release on GitHub, but I might also like to sell the binary on an app store. I would like to prevent others from simply copying my code and ...
- 181
8
votes
2
answers
3k
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License header for dual-licensed (AGPL or "non-free") source code
For one of my products I plan to move from a commercial-only to a dual licensed license model: GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) or a "non-free" license.
I can imagine two options for the ...
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7
votes
2
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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 ...
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7
votes
1
answer
517
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How do products like MongoDB not violate the GPL licenses?
I'm quite confused with MongoDB's licensing model. MongoDB at its core is an open-source project, licensed under the SSPL which is a small modification of the AGPLv3 license. Then how does it release ...
- 73
7
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3
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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 ...
user25536
7
votes
1
answer
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Use of BSD-3 Clause license and python software license for proprietary use
I am making a software in python programming language which uses libraries licensed under BSD-3 clause. Is it necessary for me to show my source code to users? Also can I restrict the distribution of ...
7
votes
2
answers
4k
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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?
...
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7
votes
2
answers
344
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Can I sell personal/commercial licenses for an Open Source product?
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/...
- 171
7
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2
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Is it possible to keep GPL-licensed software internal?
Reading this question caused me to wonder: Is it even possible to keep a GPL-licensed software internal to one company?
Am I correct in thinking that any employee who has access to it, would be free ...
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2
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Can I use JavaFX in a Commercial Application for Free?
There is so much confusion regarding this simple question it's driving me crazy. The post here says
there is no difference between JavaFX and Java licence now.
The post here says that we don't ...
- 249
7
votes
3
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423
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Distribute as FOSS for non-profit use, and charge for profit use?
Is it possible to have software that is licensed as open source (under some OSI scheme), but only for personal/non-profit use, while alternatively charge a fee for enterprise/for-profit use?
This is ...
- 173
7
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1
answer
128
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How should I approach open sourcing a library from work?
I've developed a small and useful library at work, I have permission from legal department, what are the steps I should take before, during and after open sourcing the project?
How would I transform ...
- 1,158
7
votes
1
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334
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If I use R packages licensed under GPL without any modification, do I have to publish my own software's source code when distributing commercially?
I apologise for this question but I am really really confused!
If I develop a program that uses R packages published under GPL, in their standard unmodified form in my own source code, will I have ...
7
votes
1
answer
2k
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Using GPL licensed library over a service for non-GPL softwares
I want to use a GPL v2 licensed library(esper) for commercially distributed non-GPL softwares but I need to make sure non-GPL software not violate GPL license.
Can I use this library indirectly using ...
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7
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2
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Do Licenses for Test Libraries Apply to Production Code?
(I am re-asking this question here, as I was informed that it was off-topic on Stack Overflow)
My interest in this question stems from concern over the lack of a license in a testing framework I came ...
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7
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1
answer
5k
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Can I sell and distribute my software using OpenJDK without having to release my code?
We develop a software for commercial use and sell it to customers. The software is a web based software that requires Oracle JDK for running (JRE). We are considering moving to OpenJDK because our ...
- 71
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votes
1
answer
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Distributing commercial Docker container image with openjdk:8-jdk
I am building a docker image with the following dockerfile and then pushing it to an AWS ECR repository:
FROM openjdk:8-jdk
RUN ["mkdir", "/opt/mycompany"]
COPY ["myapp.war/", "/opt/mycompany/myapp....
7
votes
1
answer
446
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Using GPL resource (with separate installation) with "commercial" product
I'm building a downloadable digital web product for sale. I want to use an open-source third-party library for my product.
This third-party library has two licenses available:
GPL
Commercial
I've ...
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