Are there any widely used non-commercial software licenses?

Question

I'm am looking into releasing the sourcecode for a project for non-commercial use. GPL and similar licenses are not non-commercial, but I don't want end up competing against software I wrote, so I can't use them.

Are there non-commercial software licenses? Preferably some that are at least somewhat known.

For know I thinking to use Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0. But Creative Commons don't recommend using their licenses for software, but using software specific licenses instead.

Answer 1

I think you can take pretty much any existing open source license and add a clause that limits it to non-commercial use, only. For example, you could alter the Simplified BSD License to look like:

== Simplified BSD *** MODIFIED FOR NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY!!! *** ==
Copyright (c) YEAR, OWNER
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
    * Any redistribution, use, or modification is done solely for personal benefit and not for any commercial purpose or for monetary gain

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

The clause in bold is the clause that I added. As long as you make it clear that your source code cannot be used by a company or for monetary gain, then there shouldn't be any problem. I would also suggest that you make it clear that it is downloadable for non-commercial use, only, on the source code download page, as well as to emphasize that it is a modified/derived license, and not the original open source license.