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0 pointsdahart3y ago0 comments

It’s the redistribution license that cannot request a fee. Public domain allows the redistributor to charge a fee. You’re getting confused about the author’s license vs the redistribution license.

> let's assume CC0 here to avoid any confusion on its legal status) does not require any fee, therefore it can be considered Open Source.

Poor choice. CC0 is not considered open source by OSI. https://opensource.org/faq#cc-zero

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seba_dos13y ago

...because of the explicit no-patent-grant clause. Yes, I'm perfectly aware, otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned that earlier myself ;)

> Public domain allows the redistributor to charge a fee.

So do Open Source licenses. You can sell software on GPL, MIT etc. with absolutely no issues. You just need to allow others to redistribute it further without any additional fees (but if they wish, they can charge a fee too).

See: https://opensource.org/faq#selling

It's in fact one of the requirements for it to stay Open Source. You are literally guaranteed to have a right to charge a fee with Open Source software. Some people would like to change that and to consider licenses that add additional restrictions like disallowing commercial usage as Open Source too, which is why the article we're commenting under has been written in the first place.

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