Alternative Licensing
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While building Razor Commerce we created a set of classes that are pretty good at handling what we are calling "fielding". Essentially adding attributes, attributesets and composer controls. We thought of releasing this as a premium addon so other developers could bundle it into their products. The question is, how to handle the licensing? Our overall product (Razor Commerce) is going to be free. If the overall package is free, does that mean developers can take the Field Library out of it and bundle it into other products (under the regular license terms)?
The other question is how to handle the type of license we want to issue. We want to offer a "developers license" because this is code-only, basically it is an API to make working with fields/composer easier. We want to allow developers who buy 1 license, to be able to bundle the code into 1 addon that they put in the marketplace. That means they only need 1 license regardless of whether they sell 10 or 500 of their items. However, the people who buy the items with the library includes, should not be able to continue distributing it without their own developers license.
Is this kind of licensing already supported by the marketplace, or can it be added through a licensing addition in the package? Any other advice?
Thanks!
The other question is how to handle the type of license we want to issue. We want to offer a "developers license" because this is code-only, basically it is an API to make working with fields/composer easier. We want to allow developers who buy 1 license, to be able to bundle the code into 1 addon that they put in the marketplace. That means they only need 1 license regardless of whether they sell 10 or 500 of their items. However, the people who buy the items with the library includes, should not be able to continue distributing it without their own developers license.
Is this kind of licensing already supported by the marketplace, or can it be added through a licensing addition in the package? Any other advice?
Thanks!
Tricky.
First, purely opinion, but my experience with concrete5 and the many ideas we've tried over the years is anytime your strategy is to charge developers for something, you're possibly on the wrong path. The market size of consumers, small business, enterprise - any of those are billions of dollars per year. Other webshops and developers are hundreds of millions at most. I know every shop I've worked with is pretty careful when it comes to buying anything more than foosball tables and beer. You're selling to a tiny sliver instead of a huge whale... Thus adobe moving to subscription models to mitigate piracy, etc.
Second, to actually answer your question:
Yeah GPL would keep people from using your free library and selling something that included it /without also offering a free way to get it/. Just to be clear, they can still sell the add-on, there will just also be a link that a savvy developer can find to download the thing for free.
We don't allow licensing additions from within add-ons/themes from the marketplace in an effort to make intellectual property issues clear to those who shop here. This stuff can get very tricky and subjective, even with clear licenses in place, so adding onion layers of licensing is a no-no.
Perhaps there's a way to bundle parts that you need into the commerce platform, but then offer a larger whole as a stand-alone add-on you sell if that's the goal? Even if its some nice developer GUI that isn't required to use the libraries but helps, that might be enough for you to meet your sales targets. Alternatively, perhaps you might consider leaving it free and offering support or consulting around it, which we're happy to let you promote on your listing here and manage off site without us getting any cut...
First, purely opinion, but my experience with concrete5 and the many ideas we've tried over the years is anytime your strategy is to charge developers for something, you're possibly on the wrong path. The market size of consumers, small business, enterprise - any of those are billions of dollars per year. Other webshops and developers are hundreds of millions at most. I know every shop I've worked with is pretty careful when it comes to buying anything more than foosball tables and beer. You're selling to a tiny sliver instead of a huge whale... Thus adobe moving to subscription models to mitigate piracy, etc.
Second, to actually answer your question:
Yeah GPL would keep people from using your free library and selling something that included it /without also offering a free way to get it/. Just to be clear, they can still sell the add-on, there will just also be a link that a savvy developer can find to download the thing for free.
We don't allow licensing additions from within add-ons/themes from the marketplace in an effort to make intellectual property issues clear to those who shop here. This stuff can get very tricky and subjective, even with clear licenses in place, so adding onion layers of licensing is a no-no.
Perhaps there's a way to bundle parts that you need into the commerce platform, but then offer a larger whole as a stand-alone add-on you sell if that's the goal? Even if its some nice developer GUI that isn't required to use the libraries but helps, that might be enough for you to meet your sales targets. Alternatively, perhaps you might consider leaving it free and offering support or consulting around it, which we're happy to let you promote on your listing here and manage off site without us getting any cut...
If Razor Commerce is on a 'free' standard marketplace license, then no, but its difficult to police.
If Razor Commerce is GPL, then only if any code that uses the classes are also free.
If Razor Commerce is MIT, then anyone can take any part and use it in free or commercial code