The Free-Rider Problem

The second question posed above is actually the easier one. Under Open Source Principles # 2 and 3, it is impossible to completely prevent free-riders in open source. All licensees are free to copy and create derivative works without payment of royalties to the licensor, and so a licensee can make as many copies of such software as possible without rewarding the licensor with even a peppercorn as payment.

If it is important to discourage free-riders who create and distribute derivative works, then a reciprocal license is often more effective than an academic license. At least with reciprocal licenses, everyone is a free-rider of everyone else's distributed derivative works, because that software is licensed under the same ...

Get Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.