[pmwiki-users] Commercialism in PmWiki (was: Google Analytics)

Marc Cooper gmane at auxbuss.com
Fri Aug 25 06:48:10 CDT 2006


Patrick R. Michaud said...
> 
> However, I should let everyone know that over the next few weeks
> and/or months, I'm intending to make available a paid (yes, $$$)
> "commercial license" for PmWiki, as an alternative to the
> existing General Public License that PmWiki is currently
> distributed under.

This is great, Patrick, absolutely great. I was very much opposed to the 
Google idea, but this is excellent news. Good luck with it.
 
> This doesn't mean there will be two versions of the software, 
> it only means that PmWiki will be available under two licenses...
> the General Public License and a more traditional software
> license that can (must) be purchased.
> 
> One may reasonably ask "If PmWiki is available under the GPL,
> why would anyone pay for a traditional license?"  The answer
> is that, believe it or not, there are businesses and
> organizations that have policies restricting the use of
> GPL software, or that can only used software that has been
> purchased and has an asset tag, invoice, or purchase order
> for it.

Yup, zero cost does not equal zero value - although US marketers seem to 
imply that it does, so I've seen. Bizarre. 

This will also makes it a lot easier to "sell" PmWiki to a business and 
extract some cash from them (for Pm) for something that is nominally 
free, but has value to them - often significant value.

For those that don't understand the whole FOSS idea, it is a remarkably 
difficult concept to get across, and one that can hamper and even stall 
a business discussion.

> The paid support will be available for both the commercial
> license and the GPL, although there may be different fee
> structures involved.  I'm still working out the details.

Take care with that one.

-- 
Best,
Marc





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