MicroShare Basic (MSB) is available under a dual licensing
model: GPL or a Commercial License.
The commercial license is designed for use by clients that do
not want their application to be bound by the terms of the GPL,
generally those applications for which source code is not going
to be released under GPL. A commercial license for MicroShare
Basic does not obligate the user to make their application
available as open source.
If you are not licensing your application under the terms of a
GPL-compatible Free Software License (as defined by the Free
Software Foundation or approved by OSI) but all or part of your
application is based on MicroShare Basic (MSB) and you intend or
need to distribute MSB, you will need to obtain a commercial
license from Business Basis Systems Corporation.
Some common situations that require you to obtain a commercial
license for MSB are as follows:
Marketing or distributing software that needs or includes
MSB to clients, where the software and MSB is installed
on their own machine(s).
Marketing or distributing software that in order to
function mandates that the client install MSB on their
machine(s).
Manufacturing and/or selling a hardware system or
appliance that includes MSB.
Basic Considerations:
If you include or need to utilize MicroShare Basic with an
application that is not licensed under the GPL or GPL-compatible
license, you need a commercial license. A commercial license will
be needed even if you do not include MicroShare Basic with your
application but expect or require your clients to have it
installed on their system in order to run your application.
Unlike the users falling under the GPL, Commercial licensees
will need to establish a business relationship with Business
Basic System Corporation and sign a commercial agreement for the
use of MSB.
With a commercial non-GPL MSB license, one license is required
for every installed copy of the software. There are no
restrictions on the type of system (number of CPUs, memory or
disks) that can use a single installed copy of the software.
Academic Institutions, Private Individuals, and Non-profit
Organizations:
Non-profit organizations or academic institutions that publish
applications as an open source / free software project under the
terms of the GPL license are free to use MSB at no charge under
the GPL license. MSB itself can be used and distributed free of
charge when used for educational purposes.
Private individuals are free to use MSB for personal
applications for private use and that are not distributed. If a
private individual distributes their application, they must
either adhere to the terms of the GPL license or acquire a
commercial license from Business Basic Systems Corporation.
A commercial license would also be required to distribute free
demo versions of any application that it itself is not
distributed under GPL.
In general, if you are distributing an application that uses
MSB and has a commercial value, you will require a commercial
license, but if you are not certain we would glad to assist you
in evaluating which type of license is most appropriate for you
to use.
