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Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law
book

Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law

by Lawrence Rosen
July 2004
Intermediate to advanced
432 pages
8h 12m
English
Pearson
Content preview from Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law

Making Money from Open Source

The first question I posed above (“How do I make money at this?”) is far more difficult to answer. Broad copyright and patent licenses such as those described in this book are certainly not consistent with business models that rely upon selling software at high per-copy prices. Anyone can become an open source distributor and compete on price. This inevitably drives the per-copy price downward toward its marginal cost of production and distribution.

But licensors can make money on what the open source license doesn't grant. For this reason, it is often more rewarding to consider the exclusions from license rather than the open source grants of license when looking for opportunities for profit.

The most important ...

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0131487876Purchase book