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views:

42

answers:

4

I am going to development a product related to security. It's my personal belief that any security related product should release it's source code for review. However, I also want to sell it as a commercial product and keep the code ownership to myself and don't expect deviated work.

Is there a software license for this purpose? Thanks.

+1  A: 

Ordinary copyright law should do this - if you don't grant a license to anyone, then people can read your code if you publish it, but you retain all rights to it.

anon
+1  A: 

I would agree with you with respect to review, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be published in the public domain. You could make it available upon request but require that anyone obtaining it (a) not disclose the code itself to another and (b) not use the code to develop a product in competition with yours. Get a lawyer to fine-tune the language. In this way, you can have your code available for inspection and verification but retain some reasonable assurance that it won't simply be copied by unscrupulous competitors -- or, at least, have a more solid case in the event that it is used without your consent.

tvanfosson
+2  A: 

Yes, it's called copyright + non-disclosure agreement.

Michael Aaron Safyan
A: 

The Microsoft Reference Source License comes to mind for this kind of requirement.

Stefan
Microsoft owns copyright for the text of this license. This license grants some patent rights. Using this license doesn't make much sense, unless you're Microsoft.
Tadeusz A. Kadłubowski