

Ask HN: FOSS for Profit? - holograham

How do you determine if a FOSS product is allowable for profit usage? I work at a large corporation that has a lengthy review process if you need to use FOSS for your project. FOSS is discouraged if there is a market solution. The impression I have is the company has a team of lawyers review the licensing and determines if we can make money off of it.<p>I know Paul Graham provides YC startups with the legal advice to start their company. However before that ever happens typically people spend lots of time producing a prototype/V1 of their vision. If they create it and its not allowed to be used for profit wouldn't that pose a huge problem?
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gojomo
Read the license. If it's one of the usual "open source" licenses, for-profit
use of the software is allowed. (It's not considered 'open source' if it
discriminates against for-profit uses.)

Perhaps you also mean whether the software can be included in your for-profit,
for-sale, possibly closed-source product. The answer is still 'read the
license'. Some licenses are OK with that reuse, others aren't.

If you're wrestling with subtle GPL interpretations or 'copyleft' clauses
you'll want to read more of the way these things have been interpreted in the
past. But there's no shortcut beyond reading and understanding for yourself,
and it's not so complicated it needs paid-professional interpretation unless
(1) you're with a giant risk-averse bureaucratic organization; and/or (2)
you're trying to pull something fishy, far from the usual interpretations.
(eg: "Is there some loophole way we can structure our code to include GPL code
without making our entire product GPL'd?")

~~~
holograham
I hear you on the "giant risk-averse bureaucratic organization".

What if you don't understand a clause? Or worse if you think you
understand....build a product...make a million...then get sued for half?

~~~
gojomo
They're not that complicated. Look around; read how others have summarized
things; do the same as other companies that haven't been sued.

If you're in an industry around intellectual property there's no excuse for
not acquiring the base level of competence and understanding that allows you,
the developer, to tell whether or not a certain open-source license allows you
to do what you want to do or not.

