

Non-Profit LGPL - sanathkumar
http://sanathkumarblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/non-profit-lgpl/

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dalke
This would not be a free license. It would not be compatible with the GPL:

"You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights
granted or affirmed under this License. For example, you may not impose a
license fee, royalty, or other charge for exercise of rights granted under
this License"

Nor would it fall under the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

"The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or
giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution
containing programs from several different sources. The license may not
require a royalty or other fee for such sale."

"The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons."

~~~
sanathkumar
Thanks for pointing it out. I intended used the term LGPL to refer to the
concept of allowing open source software to be used for commercial purposes.
But in reality, this idea would need a license of it's own. Do you think such
a license would be feasible?

~~~
dalke
There is no need to "[allow] open source software to be used for commercial
purposes." That's already widely done. Open source and commercial software are
not incompatible. Ask Google, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, and the Free Software
Foundation.

But your essay wants to combing the concepts of "open source" and "mandatory
licensing." Those concepts are mutually exclusive.

You need to read and understand the underlying moral philosophy being free
software to understand why what you are asking does not make sense. Start with
<http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html> .

~~~
sanathkumar
Thank you, dalke, for pointing out this big flaw in my understanding. I read
through that link and many relevant web pages. What my essay proposes is
mandatory licensing and not really open source. My vision for this license is
to let people freely redistribute both the source and the binary and use it
for either commercial or non-commercial purposes. However, if it was used for
a commercial purpose, then a part of the revenue should be donated to a non-
profit org.

~~~
dalke
As a technical matter, many non-profits have a lousy history of serving the
public.

Suppose the software license designates the "Dalke Foundation" as the primary
recipient of the charity. I, as the organizer of the foundation, decide that I
get US$80,000 as income for working at the organizer, and the rest is
disbursed to the local animal shelter.

This is acceptable, legally. While probably not what you intend for the
license, it seems like a good way for me to make some tax-free money.

Here is another technical difficulty. What if I am a company, who integrates
source which earmarks 8 different non-profits. I charge $100/copy, I make 30
sales per month of which 30% goes to Apple, some goes to taxes, and some goes
to my salary. What is the right way to split that revenue? Is it a fixed value
per non-profit, a fixed percentage of profit to each non-profit (giving me
inventive to raise my own salary and lower the profit), or a fixed percentage
of profit which is shared equally to all 8 non-profits?

This is even worse than the "obnoxious BSD advertising clause"
<https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html> .

Some other tricky points: is there an internationally useful definition of
"non-profit"? Can Scientology, which is a non-profit in the US but not in
Germany, use the software? Also, don't forget that the non-profit might cease
to exist. Can commercial users of the software use software which requires a
fee payment when there's no one to accept the money?

What happens if the non-profit refuses to accept the money? (For example, a
local youth support non-profit might decline to accept money from an
organization which advocates for the removal of pedophilia laws.) Can that
commercial organization still be able to use the software?

If the software is free, and most of the revenue comes from in-app purchases,
then does that count? Or is it only software sales which count? What about
support fees?

These are the problems which easily spring to mind. I'm sure you can come up
with more difficulties with the scheme.

