Quote from: glitch003 on March 05, 2018, 10:20:12 PM

Quote from: jojoe20 on March 05, 2018, 04:27:06 PM

Quote from: earthcoin on March 05, 2018, 03:46:51 PM

I heard about dual-licensing, but I couldn't find anything in the whitepaper. Can you explain how the dual-licensing works from a legal perspective?

Yeah, I am not only curious how it works from a legal perspective, but also what is it the dual-licensing itself?

Edit: We have a great blog post about this on our blog, but I also answered below. Check out the blog for more info: https://hackernoon.com/how-to-get-paid-for-open-source-6e13bb238a7f

Great questions!

Dual Licensing is where a project is developed under one main license, but also sells the ability to license the code using an alternative license.

This usually plays out where an open source project is developed using the GNU General Public License (aka the GPL). The GPL is a "copyleft" or "viral" license, which means that all other projects that utilize or depend on that open source project must also be released under the GPL. The GPL also stipulates that the source code for all components of a project must be available. This is really cool for project creators, because they can put their work out into the world for anyone to use for free with the condition that if anyone builds upon it, they must also contribute those changes back to the community by releasing the source of their software. For example, the most famous open source project, Linux, is licensed under the GPL, and this has facilitated collaboration that has culminated in Linux powering most servers and mobile phones on earth.

This means that, for example, Microsoft can't use any code released under the GPL in Windows because they would have to release Windows under the GPL and make all the source code for Windows available, which they don't want to do. For this reason, many companies forbid the use of GPL licensed components in their own software, because they wish to keep their source closed.

This is where dual licensing comes in. Even though your code is primarily released under the GPL, you can sell a proprietary license that does not have the copyleft / viral restrictions of the GPL and does not require the buyer to release their own code under the GPL, so the buyer can keep their source closed. This is also called "selling an exception to the GPL" and you can read some of Richard Stallman's (creator of the GPL) writing on this topic here: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions

Our system lets you sell that proprietary license on the blockchain for ETH. So now, anyone can get paid for their code just by listing their project for sale in our smart contract. The license sale is logged immutably to the ethereum blockchain so you can always prove that you bought a legit license.

Thanks!

P.S. I am Chris Cassano, co-founder of Deco.Network and I'll be here from time to time, but cryptoreadyplay is also helping Deco.Network with community relations, and is an official representative for us here.

That's a very good explanation. Thanks for the link to your blog post as well. I appreciate your reply.