Basiscally, his problem is that he does not want to 'open source' his code without keeping the exclusive rights to cash in on it.
There is such a license: Creative Commons, non-commercial.
But I see a deeper problem: why should he "open source" it then (in contrast to just providing the source)? The problem is: how does he handle contributions? They would all have to waive their commercial rights on the software _to the author_. I see this as fundamentally non-open. It may be honest, but not open-source.
Actually the proposed license model doesn't waive any author's commercial rights whatsoever. Every author would still have the right to do with his code whatever he/she likes.
However, there is restriction about the process of creating a profit derived from the software. At that point, it is about to give a "fair share", which is another problem domain still unsolved.
Okay, so how do you share the profits? By lines of code? Impact of the contribution? Haggling? PPP (Price per patch)?
And, moreover:
* What rights do I own in the parts that I receive royalties for? You say, I still own the rights. But you also say that I am restricted from creating profit with the software I contribute to. Why would I do that? Also, most of the code I contribute will most likely not be usable outside of the project.
* What do you do if the holder of a piece of code goes missing? (Not an uncommon problem, but it gets harder if money is involved)
* What happens if my piece of code is removed from the software, do the royalties fade?
* What happens if the body caring for all such things goes defunct? (Not unlikely, considering its a company)
* How do you foster a group of people that actually wants to take part in such a scheme?
Also, my point was that its is fundamentally non-"open". You can have any weird kind of profit scheme with source disclosure, but that doesn't make it open source.
As I said before: i see you don't want to make the jump of letting go of the (perceived) money, which I am fine with. But please don't use the word 'open' for that.
Comments
Basiscally, his problem is that he does not want to 'open source' his code without keeping the exclusive rights to cash in on it. There is such a license: Creative Commons, non-commercial.
But I see a deeper problem: why should he "open source" it then (in contrast to just providing the source)? The problem is: how does he handle contributions? They would all have to waive their commercial rights on the software _to the author_. I see this as fundamentally non-open. It may be honest, but not open-source.
Actually the proposed license model doesn't waive any author's commercial rights whatsoever. Every author would still have the right to do with his code whatever he/she likes. However, there is restriction about the process of creating a profit derived from the software. At that point, it is about to give a "fair share", which is another problem domain still unsolved.
Okay, so how do you share the profits? By lines of code? Impact of the contribution? Haggling? PPP (Price per patch)?
And, moreover: * What rights do I own in the parts that I receive royalties for? You say, I still own the rights. But you also say that I am restricted from creating profit with the software I contribute to. Why would I do that? Also, most of the code I contribute will most likely not be usable outside of the project. * What do you do if the holder of a piece of code goes missing? (Not an uncommon problem, but it gets harder if money is involved) * What happens if my piece of code is removed from the software, do the royalties fade? * What happens if the body caring for all such things goes defunct? (Not unlikely, considering its a company) * How do you foster a group of people that actually wants to take part in such a scheme?
Also, my point was that its is fundamentally non-"open". You can have any weird kind of profit scheme with source disclosure, but that doesn't make it open source.
As I said before: i see you don't want to make the jump of letting go of the (perceived) money, which I am fine with. But please don't use the word 'open' for that.