Frederic Plante(deleted)
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Re: Hybrid Software Model and Open Source Developers
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Frederic Plante(deleted)
09/13/2007 11:14 AM
post1156
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Re: Hybrid Software Model and Open Source Developers
Hi Martin,
The launch of our Hybrid Software Model targets three groups of developers: non-commercial, technology partners and
commercial. We offer each of these groups their own form of license to our QNX Momentics development tools and QNX
Neutrino RTOS that enables them to participate in community activities, including creating and exchanging derivative
works (see http://licensing.qnx.com/developer-licenses for more details). We certainly do not intend to limit our
initiative to enabling existing commercial licensees to share their modifications in an open manner, as you have
questioned; rather, we are equally enabling all three groups of developers to do so with any other QSS licensees
(whether non-commercial, partner or commercial). We intend to encourage a broadening of the QNX development community
by enabling all of these groups.
Regarding your question as to what "non commercial" actually entails, we will be providing guidance in our license
agreement FAQ pages at http://licensing.qnx.com/ as we get specific examples posed to us from the QNX development
community. To address your hypothetical question, our Non-Commercial EULA licenses three types of activity: Evaluation
- which allows anyone to evaluate our products and do prototype development for 90 days; Academic Faculty - which allows
our products to be used in classrooms and labs; and Non-Commercial Developer - which allows hobbyists, students and
others to use our tools and RTOS for a range of activities, for as long as they want, provided the software is not used
"in or for any commercial undertaking". To us a "commercial undertaking" primarily includes one that makes money,
whether in a for-profit or not-for-profit setting. Using QNX Neutrino RTOS in a web server for a commercial site would
require a commercial runtime license. Using the QNX Momentics Tools to perform the associated development or
maintenance for that web server would also require a commercial tool license.
We have been very clear about the fact that we are not "open sourcing" our software. We intend to continue charging
license fees for use of our technology in a commercial context - that is why we call our license model the Hybrid
Software Model. By combining a variety of ways to get our software under free licenses, publishing our source code, and
opening our entire development process to the public, we believe we are delivering a combination of many of the best
attributes of both the open development and the proprietary development worlds. Unfortunately for your example, free
licenses for use of our software in or for a commercial undertaking is not one of them.
- Fred
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