OT: non-commercial open source license?

Ivan Avery Frey ivan.frey-H217xnMUJC0sA/PxXw9srA at public.gmane.org
Fri Jan 13 16:02:13 UTC 2006


Christopher Browne wrote:
> On 1/8/06, Sy Ali <sy1234-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>> On 1/4/06, Aaron Vegh <aaronvegh-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>>> So the question became: is there an open source licence that would
>>> restrict use to personal only, and not commercial?
>> While everyone goes off into their tangents, if I ignore "open source"
>> then the short answer is yes.. there is a license which will allow the
>> source code to be re-distributed and not be available for commercial
>> uses.
> 
> But that wasn't the question.  The question is whether or not there is
> an open source license restricting use to "personal only."
> 
> The answer is that there isn't one; there can't be.
> 
> The usual definition of "open source" is found here...
> <http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php>
> 
> Terms #5 and #6 between them reject this sort of discrimination
> against commercial use.
> 
> Ergo, you can't find an "open source" license of any sort that will be
> suitable, because the desired form of discrimination is incompatible
> with the notion of "open source."
> 
> We're not going off on tangents; you, by changing subjects to non-OSS
> licenses, are the one introducing tangents.


Well yes and no. The problem here is communication. And since I'm 
jumping into the middle of this discussion I'm going to really muddy it up.

I believe Aaron asked whether there was an open source license that 
prohibited commercial use, thinking that there was one.

Since there isn't one, the question should have been:

What software licence allows most uses except commercial?

Ivan.
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