Sell Any Code

[Tempeste Villada]

Thethird one might be a feature you can't afford to give me. Fix that through legal measures, not technical measures. That's what licensing is for. You could also sell more expensive licenses which do allow resale.

You could also consider a combination of approaches. E.g., partition your solution into several stand alone packages, and then open source some of them, and sell bytecode versions of other parts. What you then sell is the complete solution, as well as other services, and some people may benefit and enhance other parts of the solution.

Plenty of companies make money off of applications in interpreted languages and happily distribute the source code with them. Don't take this personally, but your program probably isn't going to be popular enough to have a large following of pirates. And anybody who would pirate your software probably isn't going to buy it in the first place. If they can't pirate it, they'll pirate somebody elses.

Whatever you do, please don't obfuscate your code. It's not an effective means of preventing infringement and it won't do anything other than make life miserable for you and your customers.

IMHO, your solution really depends on your target market. If you are targeting business, just give them the code with a good license, and possibly some type of defect so you can determine who gave your code away if that ever happens. Businesses will mostly pay for your app just to stay compliant; it's not worth the legal hassles. And if an individual gets your app for free, that's probably a good thing, since they will try to convince their current and future employers to buy it.

If you are targeting individuals, and can do it as a web app (which you obviously are with PHP), do it as a hosted service, and either sell a monthly subscription or allow free access and find another way to monetize it.

With PHP you have the option of using the Zend Guard for PHP. I believe it compiles the source code in a way similar to what the php interpreter does,so it should also increase performance. Of course the price of $ 600 may be too much for your liking ;-)

Anyway, I see no reason why you shouldn't distribute your code with an open source license (see the Open Source Initiative for a list of licenses available). You can find one that prohibits your customer from redistributing your app.

EDIT:

As Novelocrat points out in his comment, a license that prohibits distribution is per definitionem not an Open Source license, the term Open Source refers to a lot more than just the availability of the source code. (See also the answers to this related question for further discussion).

I have several different versions of the same software (written in .Net/WPF) that interact with different brands of hardware. I decided to discontinue one of the platforms. The company that sells the hardware for that platform approached me about purchasing the software source code from me so they can continue to sell the software to their customers.

So, I would rework the UI and rebrand it so it doesn't look exactly like the other versions of the software, and they could claim it as their own. My question is, is there a way for me to sell and give them the source, without putting myself in legal danger since 50% of the source code is still in use with the other versions of the program I will continue selling?

The client is fully aware of the situation, and is not interested in exclusive rights to the code. They just want to be able to take it over (and modify it if need be) so they can continue to sell it.

What you do not want to do is to transfer ("sell") the copyright to the source code. If you did that, you would put yourself in legal danger because they now own the copyright to code that you use in other products, and can sue you for copyright infringement.

However, you selling a copy of source code does not imply transfer of copyright in any shape of form. When you buy a copy of a book in a book store, the author's copyright is not transferred to you. Accepting this deal would put the other party in legal danger. Even if they have bought the source code, they still don't have a license to make further copies of it and sell those.

If I were in your position, I would hire an IP lawyer to help drafting the license. But, basically, the license should say that you, as owner of the copyright to ABC software, grants XYZ company access to its source in its present form, and also grants XYZ company the right to create derivative works, but only for hardware platform DEF, and to create and distribute copies of their derivative work.

I know that it is possible to sell GPL code, but I wanted to know if it was possible to sell GPL code that has been forked and modified. The forked and modified code will still be available to use, modify, and redistribute.

The Free Software Movement has always clearly differenciated between Free of charge and Freedom of usage/modification/redistribution. The GPL is clearly about the latter. The only fundamental issue is full compliance with all the terms of the license. Apparently you intend to do just that so it shouldn't be a problem.

The only issue that might arise is independent from the GPL and is simply a matter of logic/psychology: if the modified program is freely redistribuable and thus available then why might anyone pay for it. It still doesn't make it undoable.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things.

You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program, in the form of source code under the terms of section 4, provided that you also meet all of these conditions...

Yes, go for it, noting that the license says you have to make the source available to anyone you distribute the software to. That aspect is NOT optional. You also need to understand that you can't stop your users from giving the software to other people (the FSF link below explains these points).

One thing to be careful of - there are a lot of people who associate the GPL with free (as in beer) software, not just in freedom to do what you want with the software you get. If there's a large community around the software, you may get unfortunate push back when you do try to sell your forked version. One reaction is likely to be that you are trying to make money off the hard work of others.

If you can, make your source generally available. Where appropriate, you may also want to consider pushing some of your changes up-steam to the original project. This may not make sense for your business plan, but if you can swing it, it would go a long way to shutting up anyone who thinks you are just leaching off the community.

Sure, you can sell GPL software whose copyright is held in full or in part by someone else. Doing so is just like distributing it for free, and subject to exactly the same limitations. It's just that the group you're distributing to is "people who pay me $10 first."

Table of Contents Title 18.2. Crimes and Offenses Generally Chapter 5. Crimes Against Property Article 3. Larceny and Receiving Stolen Goods 18.2-108.01. Larceny with intent to sell or distribute; sale of stolen property; penalty

A. Any person who commits larceny of property with a value of $1,000 or more with the intent to sell or distribute such property is guilty of a felony punishable by confinement in a state correctional facility for not less than two years nor more than 20 years. The larceny of more than one item of the same product is prima facie evidence of intent to sell or intent to distribute for sale.

B. Any person who sells, attempts to sell or possesses with intent to sell or distribute any stolen property with an aggregate value of $1,000 or more where he knew or should have known that the property was stolen is guilty of a Class 5 felony.

So can they(the buyers) change my codes and make it their own in their themes? Because i read on themeforest in an article that buyers could buy a theme and use the php codes in it in their own themes (IF AND ONLY IF) they modified it.

Could you please educate me on what rights (at least brief) do buyers have over a theme once they buy it and under what type of licenses could i sell my theme but reserve the rights over the php files, javascript and other files that i sell with my themes(of course users can modify it but only for their own client NOT for reselling them later).

Yes, they can absolutely take it and sell it. All WordPress theme PHP code on TF is licensed under the GPL. By selling a theme here, you are explicitly granting the rights for people who receive your code to copy, modify, and distribute the code for free or a price. The only restriction they have is that they must also follow the license.

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Yes, you can sell your Python codes. There are various platforms and online marketplaces that allow developers to sell their programming skills and code, including Python codes. If you use platforms like Payhip, you can create your own customizable website for free and sell your Python codes directly from your website to your customers.

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