duplicacy
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gilbertchen
License implications for non-commercial non-personal
Your license describes usage for personal use & commercial use, but doesn't describe what is needed for usage that doesn't fit into either of those categories. Eg, open-source projects, non-profit organizations.
In my case, I'd like to consider CLI-Duplicacy as one of the potential candidates in what the Gentoo Linux infrastructure uses.
We are running an internal project to find & compare the backup options: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Infrastructure/Backups_v3 Some of the requirements planning may also help for duplicacy feature planning
From LICENSE.md:
Copyright © 2017 Acrosync LLC
- Free for personal use or commercial trial
- Non-trial commercial use requires per-user licenses available from duplicacy.com at a cost of $20 per year
- Commercial licenses are not required to restore or manage backups; only the backup command requires a valid commercial license
- Modification and redistribution are permitted, but commercial use of derivative works is subject to the same requirements of this license
So go to duplicacy.com and see the licenses that fit your use case.
I have already looked at LICENSE.md in the CLI repo; it believes that you must be either Personal XOR Commercial. It doesn't say anything about non-personal non-commercial.
The Buy page also doesn't clear up what the definition of User is in the context of Duplicacy's commercial CLI license. That same page DOES say that the Personal GUI version cannot be used for non-profits.
Gentoo Foundation, as a non-profit, is entirely volunteer, there is no employment whatsoever.
OK, wasn't clear if you had seen the LICENSE.md file. I'll shutup and let @gilbertchen respond. :)
I'm not a lawyer, so I'll just borrow the definition from Creative Commons:
NonCommercial means not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation
In that spirit, working for an open-source project or a non-profit does not automatically grant you a non-commercial status. Rather, it is whether or not the user receives monetary compensation that determines whether a commercial license is required. Therefore, a developer working on an open-source project just for fun should be viewed as a personal user, but if the developer is employed by a company to work on the project she/he should pay for a commercial license.
In Gentoo's case:
Gentoo Foundation, as a non-profit, is entirely volunteer, there is no employment whatsoever
Since there is no employment involved, I think all users in Gentoo Foundation can be classified as non-commercial users.
Hope this is clear enough. If not please let me know your concerns and I'll clarify further.
@gilbertchen Thanks, this does clear it up.
Can you codify this into your LICENSE.md or the webpage? (and maybe define User for the CLI license as well). I did see you considering the Fair Source License as well, but that would also mean defining user
I have previously had paid 20% time from my job that I put into the infrastructure of the Gentoo Foundation, but I don't have that flexibility at present.
@gilbertchen I really suggest that you get a lawyer to review what you're doing here. On the face of it there appear to be IP and licensing issues with this project:
- lack of clarity around the licensing, as demonstrated by the discussion above
- relicensing of 3rd party code under existing license (see ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md, including Apache-2.0 code which is not compatible with the usage restrictions you've imposed.
- accepting 3rd party contributions for a commercially licensed application (I did not see any contributor agreement, and contributors have a natural "artistic rights" that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
- numerous license changes (LICENSE.md shows seven versions)
lack of clarity around the licensing, as demonstrated by the discussion above
The lack of clarity arose mostly from the confusion around the definition of "user". Since we switched to the per-computer model, the number of questions has been dramatically decreased.
relicensing of 3rd party code under existing license (see ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md, including Apache-2.0 code which is not compatible with the usage restrictions you've imposed.
Why is the Apache license not compatible with the usage restrictions? My understanding is that Apache as a permissive license should not dictate what license Duplicacy can use, and I'm not even modifying those libraries (azure-sdk, aws-sdk, blake2b).
accepting 3rd party contributions for a commercially licensed application (I did not see any contributor agreement, and contributors have a natural "artistic rights" that vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction
If you submit a PR you'll see the Contributor License Agreement that you need to sign before the PR can be merged.
numerous license changes (LICENSE.md shows seven versions)
We started with the Fair Source License, switched to our own per user license, then finally settled down on the current per-computer license (no more changes since then). Again, judging from the number of questions I received, I feel the license is now quite simple and clear in its current form. I do have plan to hire a lawyer to formalize it, but at this time I would rather spend the time and resource on something else.
Why is the Apache license not compatible with the usage restrictions? My understanding is that Apache as a permissive license should not dictate what license Duplicacy can use, and I'm not even modifying those libraries (azure-sdk, aws-sdk, blake2b).
If you're only linking then Apache 2.0 should be fine, however the ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md states: "Duplicacy is based on the following open source projects" which I presume meant that you're reusing code from those projects?
If you submit a PR you'll see the Contributor License Agreement
That's good to see. I looked at a few merged PR's and didn't find one. Does it show on the first PR?
I do have plan to hire a lawyer to formalize it
Sounds good.