Donationware: you must donate to use it. Not like regular optional donates.
this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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It's free software. You can charge money for distribution of free software but if the user does then he has the right to have acces to the source code forever no restrictions. And that user is free to distribute copies of the software as he wishes.
That copy is Paidware.
No. FOSS licenses provide protections/rights over the source code to the user regardless if that user paid for it/a pre-compiled binary or not.
Even in a scenario where the source is
restricted-access FOSSthe license still grants those protections without exception. Moreover a restricted-access FOSS model goes against the very nature of FOSS, even if it's not explicitly forbidden by the license. This kind of model is typically referred to as commercial open-source software (COSS).This approach is essentially commercial proprietary software but they messed up by picking the wrong license.
You can change for software distribution (binaries).Directly from gpl site...:
Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? (#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney)
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)
Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my distribution site? (#DoesTheGPLAllowDownloadFee)
Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. Under GPLv2, if you distribute binaries by download, you must provide “equivalent access” to download the source—therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary. If the binaries being distributed are licensed under the GPLv3, then you must offer equivalent access to the source code in the same way through the same place at no further charge.
Please speak with a lawyer.
That specific sold binary copy is by definition paidware regardless of source code distribution as there's a paywall preventing you from accessing that specific distribution of that specific copy.
As for the rest :
Directly from same gpl site.
Does the GPL allow me to require that anyone who receives the software must pay me a fee and/or notify me? (#DoesTheGPLAllowRequireFee)
No. In fact, a requirement like that would make the program nonfree. If people have to pay when they get a copy of a program, or if they have to notify anyone in particular, then the program is not free. See the definition of free software.
The GPL is a free software license, and therefore it permits people to use and even redistribute the software without being required to pay anyone a fee for doing so.
You can charge people a fee to get a copy from you. You can't require people to pay you when they get a copy from someone else.
If I distribute GPLed software for a fee, am I required to also make it available to the public without a charge? (#DoesTheGPLRequireAvailabilityToPublic)
No. However, if someone pays your fee and gets a copy, the GPL gives them the freedom to release it to the public, with or without a fee. For example, someone could pay your fee, and then put her copy on a web site for the general public.
Does the GPL allow me to distribute copies under a nondisclosure agreement? (#DoesTheGPLAllowNDA)
No. The GPL says that anyone who receives a copy from you has the right to redistribute copies, modified or not. You are not allowed to distribute the work on any more restrictive basis.
If someone asks you to sign an NDA for receiving GPL-covered software copyrighted by the FSF, please inform us immediately by writing to [email protected].
If the violation involves GPL-covered code that has some other copyright holder, please inform that copyright holder, just as you would for any other kind of violation of the GPL.
That's the same I'm saying. What you quoted just says that you can charge for distributing free software but you cannot force other holders of the software to distribute it asking for a charge.
You as a distributor can charge for what you distribute, that's it. And it has been done with a lot of free software, like with Linux. That's why basically Linus changed his License from explicitly free in money to only free as in freedom.
The thing is that free software allows to have a paywall if the distributor wants it. Which has a lot of sense. But does not allow to enforce it to other distributors.
Richard Stallman distributed GNU tools by a price. HIS distribution of GNU tools. At the same time you can also get the GNU tools from idk Debian mirrors (for free).
Free software isn't free as in money. That's the whole point. The adoption of Open Source by the "cool" companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.) has tainted the original meaning of free software.
Did you even read my first reply?
It wasn't about wether or not you can charge. It was about the protections always being granted to the user regardless if they paid the fee. A user could "steal" a copy without paying a fee and still be able to legally distribute it, you wouldn't even be able to press charges for "theft" because the license grants rights regardless of the means it was accessed.
Also it's FOSS, not "free software", they're not the same thing. Free software could be any software that doesn't cost money, FOSS is Free(-dom) Open Source Software.
GPL is free (or libre) software. FOSS is a modern term adopted by companies.
The term FOSS originated in the early 1980s from the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the GNU Project led by Richard Stallman (Creator of GPL) to promote software freedom and address the ambiguity associated with the term "free software".
The term "Libre Software" was actually introduced after FOSS in the early 2000s, sometime around 2002, alongside terms like "software libre" and FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software).
The term "free software" in the context of FOSS was introduced only a few years before FOSS by Richard Stallman with the Free Software Movement and was criticized for being confusing and ambiguous with the historical use of the term that dates all the way back to the 1960s that defines it as any software free of cost.
Not only is the term "FOSS" not modern, it predates all other terms except "free software" which it follows closely after.
So would that mean that torrenting parted magic is legal?
Yes? You can also torrent your favourite Linux distros. Torrenting is not illegal; distributing pirated content is
My bad, got it mixed up with gPartEd
If the source code is free software you are free to share it if you have a copy of it.