New answers tagged commercial
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If you use the program to create something you want to sell (and do so by using said program in the way it is supposed to be used, not e.g. just to show it's colorful splash screen on some computer in the background)), I'd say that is clearly commercial use. No, "the image created is a tiny part/will be licensed separatately for free" probably won'...
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When people hear that a product or service is free, their natural assumption is that this refers to the price. If someone charges them to download a Linux distribution, they'll feel cheated -- "Hey, I thought Linux was free software!"
The distinction is then made to address this common misunderstanding. "We didn't mean the price is zero, we ...
0
Another hypothetical counterexample you can imagine is custom software written by a contractor/consultancy. (Although my guess is that's usually covered by a transfer of copyright from supplier to client.) The client pays the contractor to make them an e-shop; the contractor retains the right to use the code they made as they see fit; and the client is ...
-2
To make a distinction between free software (as in software you can download for free) and free software (software where you are free to use it how you want). You could also charge for the use of free (as in speech) software, but as you said it would likely be taken advantage of.
Even though the term freeware exists your average person would still say free ...
6
The answers here are great, and this one won’t be better, but there is a point that hasn’t been addressed in any of them and can be pertinent to this conversation:
Because Bob's copy of the game is indistinguishable from Alice's original copy, why would anybody buy the game from Alice when they could just get it from Bob? Or copy it from a friend?
...
10
Actually I think this rule is coming from the ages before internet was available for everyone. Like 29 years ago you could buy a few floppy disks with linux on it. And that the vendor could charge you was only legal because it was 'free as in speech' and not 'as in beer'. At that time copying software was not effortless.
5
While someone who had bought a piece of copyleft software only distributed by the author for paying customers could indeed redistribute it for free, it doesn't necessarily follow that someone would.
Even if the software is copyleft, the party developing and selling that software can ask their clients (more or less) nicely to please not redistribute it. If ...
13
This is why most Open Source vendors sell service plans rather than software.
Yes, the nature of Open Source licenses would allow anyone to download and install the software for free, and to in turn give free copies of the software to other people.
As a result, most Open Source vendors don't sell the software itself - they sell service plans. You can install ...
68
You've noticed that if a piece of software is "free as in speech," it will probably become "free as in beer" too. That's completely true.
The important thing, however, is that the converse is not true. If a piece of software is "free as in beer," it will not automatically become "free as in speech." There are a lot of ...
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