From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 4 23:39:59 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A35C637B401 for ; Sun, 4 May 2003 23:39:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from heron.mail.pas.earthlink.net (heron.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.189]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 19E4B43F93 for ; Sun, 4 May 2003 23:39:59 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert2@mindspring.com) Received: from pool0107.cvx22-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net ([209.179.198.107] helo=mindspring.com) by heron.mail.pas.earthlink.net with asmtp (SSLv3:RC4-MD5:128) (Exim 3.33 #1) id 19CZdi-0003l9-00; Sun, 04 May 2003 23:39:55 -0700 Message-ID: <3EB606EC.E945C205@mindspring.com> Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 23:38:36 -0700 From: Terry Lambert X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Brett Glass References: <4.3.2.7.2.20030504213212.03a5f140@localhost> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ELNK-Trace: b1a02af9316fbb217a47c185c03b154d40683398e744b8a4c09943fa23b8f1c5a40024b4e6ff652f3ca473d225a0f487350badd9bab72f9c350badd9bab72f9c cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: open source license with 24 month proprietary clause X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 05 May 2003 06:39:59 -0000 Brett Glass wrote: > At 09:16 PM 5/3/2003, Jeremy C. Reed wrote: > >Has anyone heard of an open source license where new code based on it can > >be kept proprietary for 24 months? > > Jeremy, you're misusing the word "proprietary" in the same way that > Stallman does. Also, what if market conditions make it impossible > to recoup one's investment in 24 months, That's easy to answer: get a patent, and you have another 18 years on top of that. 8-|. Frankly, if you can't recoup your R&D investment in 24 months, I have to not only wonder how you got funding to make that investment in the first place, I have to wonder at the value you are expecting to realize in the first place. > or you decided to sell your business a year later? It could > turn into a "time bomb license." It *is* a "time bomb license". So are patents, so is copyright; if you are legitimately arguing about anything here, it's the length of the fuse. > If you want to give something away, give it away. If you cannot afford > to give something you own away, there's no shame in keeping it. Simple > as that. That's true. But it's pretty clear the original poster *does* want to give it away, after an amortization period. FWIW: any time you buy software, or even a laptop, the IRS says it depreciates to a value of $0 in as little as 3 years (that's the period of time over which you are permitted to depreciate such things). So if you spend 10 years writing something, and then want to amortize R&D costs over a standard depreciation schedule for "like artifacts", well, you've wasted 7 years. -- Terry