Dual licenses and open source: Best of both worlds?

Most enterprises needn't worry about the "viral" aspect of open-source licenses. Because most enterprises use software for internal purposes, rather than distribute it, they don't trigger the standard open-source requirement to contribute back derivative works. A recent Federal Computer Week article by John Moore does an admirable job of clarifying this.

There are, however, instances in which an enterprise might well trigger the contribution requirement of open-source licensing. If a company sold off a division to another company, complete with the servers running modified open-source software, this would likely trigger a "distribution" and might well affect the value of the deal.

For this and other instances, it's helpful to have a dual-licensing strategy. In this way, customers get all the benefits of open source, especially the ability to view and modify source code to suit their particular needs, without the obligation to contribute back derivative works.

Unfortunately, this perpetuates the problem that Jim Whitehurst of Red Hat has been highlighting: the more software created in isolation, the greater the industry's inefficiency and the higher the cost of software. Dual-licensing doesn't solve this problem. It is, however, a good way to help guide enterprises into open source on comforting terms.

[TimBowden]

Matt, that's not so much of a problem. You only need to give the modified sources to the party you give the modified binaries to. You /don't/ need to make them public. Heck, if you want the modified source to travel only with the divested division, not a problem. You can always make it a contract condition that the divesting parent entity /won't/ keep a copy. About the only thing you can't do, is deny the source to those you give the binaries to, and I can't see who loses there.

[The_Decider]

I think this is what helps Trolltech although QT is extremely overpriced and not much better than the free wxWidgets.

I think it is simultaneously hilarious and pathetic that brain dead corporate drones need a restrictive and expensive license to feel better about a piece of software.

What proof do you have that selling a part of a business "might well trigger the contribution requirement of open-source licensing"? As long as it stays in house, and not released to outside users they wouldn't have to.

This is not the same scenario, but the sale of MySQL didn't seem to effect its price at all.

I find it amusing that you often take companies to task for not contributing to OSS, yet here you are defending dual licensing so companies don't have to contribute to OSS.

A little consistency in your opinions is not a bad thing.

[TimBowden]

The destribution requirements may or may not be triggered depending on the corporate structures involved. I'm sure the lawyers involved would be able to resolve that question case by case.

[Balderdash12]

Red Hat's Whitehurst is such a complete hypocrite. Red Hat, due to the tipping effect of big ISV's, is the only Linux vendor that can charge for its distribution. By encouraging more open source work to happen, it almost entirely accrues to Red Hat's financial benefit - customers can't get that benefit on any other distro, because ISV's only support Red Hat. Red Hat contributes little to no innovation, just aping others with products like JBoss - of course they want more people to lift a laboring oar. They are as bad as Microsoft.

[The_Decider]

I guess you have never heard of SLED?

Open source development does reduce redundancy, I am not sure what relevance your rant has to the topic at hand.

[TimBowden]

Wow Balderdash12, you must have done some heavy duty research to come up with that post! If you want to troll, you must at least make it believable. The skill is to twist a few key facts in your favour, then bury it in otherwise true statements. That way it has a better chance of getting overlooked. Making every statement obviously false just leads people to dismissing you as a crank and a fraud. Of course, you're still a crank and a fraud when you do troll, it's just that done properly not everyone will see your lack of integrity.