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Open source projects going commercial
Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:11 am
by matthijs
Sometimes projects which were at first open source turn into closed source. Examples: Cubecart, of which I always thought it was open source. Or Activecollab. Used to be an open source project.
But I always thought that once open source, you can't go back?
Re: Open source projects going commercial
Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 2:51 am
by arjan.top
if it is your code, you can release it with any license you want
Re: Open source projects going commercial
Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:06 am
by Inkyskin
I think the only issue would be if other people helped to create it, on which case they should have some input on whatever license is applied. If it's just a single entity or company, then as Arjan says, your code, you can do what you like with it!
Re: Open source projects going commercial
Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:34 am
by matthijs
But people are still allowed to grab the latest open-source version of the code and go on with that as an open-source project, isn't it?
Re: Open source projects going commercial
Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 5:50 am
by Chris Corbyn
matthijs wrote:But people are still allowed to grab the latest open-source version of the code and go on with that as an open-source project, isn't it?
Yes, for most open source licenses that's true
EDIT | The project/company name would more than likely have to be different for the forked version though.
Re: Open source projects going commercial
Posted: Wed Mar 19, 2008 7:00 am
by Jenk
I was under the impression that you are able to switch license as and when you please, but were restricted to versions. I.e. if you release a version under GPL, that version will always be GPL - but later releases can be under different licenses.
Re: Open source projects going commercial
Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:40 pm
by mattw
Since you own the code, you can do what you like. Once you have released source code under the GPL, it is effectively GPLed for good at that version (same with other licenses such as BSD, in general).
However, you can change future patches to commercial. At that point, your changes are not available except commercially.
So you release version 1.00, and 1.01 under the GPL. You decide to go commerical, and release 1.1. Someone with 1.00 or 1.01 can use them under the GPL, modify them, redistribute, etc. But they cannot take your 1.1 changes and incorporate them.