Licensing software as open source but charging for compiled executables?

Question

As I understand it software being open source does not prevent you from selling it (does this depend on the type of license?) but is this a good idea?

For my pet project the target audience is for the most part non-programmers who wouldn't know how to compile the source anyway, but I still want to keep it open mostly for possible future employers to view my "portfolio" as well as to get critique from others, or just for others to learn from.

I don't expect to quit my day job from it or anything, mostly just to defray minor costs like web hosting, domain and other misc stuff, and hopefully some pocket change.

Providing support isn't really an option, it's and end-user app and one of the primary objectives is to make it as easy to use as possible.

The closest license that sounds like it'd be friendly to this is the Ms-RSL but Google Code which I'm currently using doesn't support that license, and a quick search looks like Sourceforge doesn't either (I could be wrong). It's currently GPL, but I just have a few classes stubbed out right now, so changing isn't an issue.

Are there any examples of other people doing this (success or failure)? Am I better off just asking for donations? Should I just not license it as open source (is it automatically closed source if I don't have any license but just distribute it upon request?) Any other options I haven't thought of?

Edit: What I'm more interested aside from the legal aspect is whether the practice of straight selling open source software is generally frowned upon, i.e. will I piss off customers that bought it and later found out it was open source. Should I announce it on the site or keep a one-way link from source-code to retail site but not the other way around? Announce it but not make it prominent?

Answer 1

If you share it without a licence, normal copyright laws applies. And I don't see anything wrong with charging for open source software. Most open source licences (like GPL) just requires that you supply the sourcecode to the people that got the binary, and that they can do anything they want with that sourcecode. Including selling their own compiled binaries.

Answer 2

Depends on the license. You can technically sell a GPL program, but you must also give the source with the binary, and the recipient can modify and redistribute it for free. It's not an economically sustainable model.

Portfolio: Just give the code to the employer for their evaluation only. No need for open source.

Critique from others: You probably want some license that forbids redistribution there. If you intend to sell. At first glance, this is what MS-RSL seems to provide, but I am not familiar with it.

Remember it is your code. You are free to distribute it under an unlimited number of licenses to different people.

Answer 3

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is probably a good example of something like this: they are open-source and you can download every source package from their FTP site; however, they charge for their own build.

Answer 4

Nobody will care if you try to sell your own code, even if it is opensource. The only time people get riled up is when you try to sell somebody else's opensourced code, and then only if it's in violation of the license (in letter or in spirit)

Answer 5

Free software isn't about “not charging a fee”. Selling free software is an excellent way to fund more work on free software.

What you probably can't do is treat it like loaves of bread; nothing strictly prevents you from trying, but your customers have their own perfectly functional loaf-duplication machines, so they're not likely to pay you if that's all you're doing for them.

Your consideration should be, then, how to add value on an ongoing basis, without making the software non-free. Being the most-reputable and most-knowledgeable vendor for the software is one proven method; charging a fee for customisations (and, let's face it, all users want customisations, it's just a matter of how much they want them) that then get released into a future version is another. There are lots of ways to sell free software.

You're asking about business, though: be innovative! Work within the boundaries (don't make the software any less free for any of its recipients) and come up with something new.