Software licenses and releasing Python programs for review

[Robert Kern]

poisondart wrote:

[John J. Lee:]
>>Secondly, do you think it's a bad thing for anybody to sell software
>>that makes use of the *concepts* in your code (provided that the use
>>of those concepts is not restricted by financial or other legal
>>means)?  If so, why?
>>
>>John
> 
> To be honest. I'm not sure. The knowledge that I learnt was all given
> to me freely, I just consolidated it into these programs. I feel that
> it would be unfair that along this chain of knowledge passing, one
> person decided to exploit the free system and harbour his knowledge for
> profit.

You can't copyright concepts and ideas. If someone wants to make 
commercial use of the knowledge, he can do so, and no license of yours 
can stop him.

What you can copyright is your expression of that knowledge in code. So 
let's be a little clearer about exactly the actions that you can forbid: 
the redistribution of *your code*. Not the use of the knowledge 
contained therein. Your choice of license can't affect the issues you 
seem to be basing your decision on.

As one academic to another, I am asking you to consider using an 
authentic Open Source license rather than one that forbids commercial 
redistribution (I don't think you've answered my question, yet, about 
whether you want to forbid commercial *use* as well, but I'm against 
that, too). You have every right to require that people redistributing 
your code to not profit thereby, but with an Open Source license, you 
have the opportunity to join a broader, more vibrant community. My 
experience with no-commercial-whatever academic projects is that they 
almost never develop a real community of code. The initial developer is 
the only developer, and the project languishes. Having a real Open 
Source license, especially one of the copyleft licenses like the GPL, 
encourages users to use the code, improve it, and gift the improvements 
back to the community.

You end up with a community of people freely contributing their 
expertise to the world. That's a lot more than what you alone could 
provide. But you can get the process started.

-- 
Robert Kern
rkern at ucsd.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
  Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
   -- Richard Harter