Free Unlimited Version of AutoTRAX PCB Design Software

[Neganur]

The Third edition of The Art of Electronics is out now at $120 US.

I paid $60.

You cannot compare books to software (imho, you're assuming that people value both the same). Compare it to Eagle or similar instead.

Does the cat have a paypal donation address?

[pickle9000]

You should see if you can get Dave to review. He is notoriously hard on software (first look) but probably worthwhile.

Perhaps you could get on the Amp hour.

[Iliya]

The Third edition of The Art of Electronics is out now at $120 US.

I paid $60.

You cannot compare books to software (imho, you're assuming that people value both the same). Compare it to Eagle or similar instead.

Does the cat have a paypal donation address?

Sorry my cat (Poppy) cares nothing for money and so does not have anything to do with paypal. However, chicken breast (preferably raw) is another matter.

Here she is destroying my productivity.

[Iliya]

You cannot compare books to software (imho, you're assuming that people value both the same). ....

I know what you mean but what is a book?, certainly not just 400 pages of bound paper. Is a book static? Is the internet one massive book? Software can behave and replace a book, 400 pages of bound paper cannot replace software.

P.S. I love books and cannot stand reading a PDF/ePub book on my iPad. The smell, feel etc of a book is like sex for the mind  and a bookshop My favourite book shops are OpAmp is LA (If it's still there) and Foyles in London, especially when it organized books by publisher and author! You could find books there that even Foyles never knew they had! Sadly I use Amazon or it's associates a lot now (makes my accountant cat happy  )

[andyb]

Iliya, I just wanted to say thank you. It's clear that you've put a tremendous amount of effort into this, really appreciate what you're doing!

(Don't let the nay-sayers get you down!!)

[miguelvp]

P.S. Do you work for free?

Yes, that's the whole point of open source.

Not really, you can make money with open source and that's one of the points about open source, you charge for your expertise in the application, not for the application itself, but it's hard to do unless your application needs a lot of consulting for commercial entities that use it.

Edit: that said, the open source model might not fit Iliya's plans. $49 (or $39) is not that bad, otherwise stick with gEDA and kicad.

[Neganur]

ah help me out for a sec, open source means the source is available as 'free beer' and actually you can't charge for the original source (but charge for bundling it with other software).
While 'free software' however gives freedom to ask for money for it too (or not ask money).

[DerekG]

Perhaps Iliya could try and make CERN pay him to create such a package if DEX is further along than Kicad.

CERN won't pay a cent.

[zapta]

Edit: that said, the open source model might not fit Iliya's plans. $49 (or $39) is not that bad, otherwise stick with gEDA and kicad.

Or eagle or dip trace, subject to size limitations.

For open source projects it may be useful to buy license for a project, not for seats. That way I can pay one time license for my project and others can modify the design under the same project license.

[Neganur]

no one answered my question yet but I think that you cannot ask license fees for the use of open source software.
You can sell open source software, but you cannot restrict the use of it nor can you prevent your customers from reselling it.

[miguelvp]

But this is not open source.

Even if it was, open source doesn't restrict the author to have difference licensing options including charging.

[Neganur]

no that's the point, you can not charge for an open source license. Neither can you restrict how people use open source licensed software. You can charge for all kinds of added services, logos, trademarks, proprietary add-ons, but you can not restrict the use of the software (which is what a license option does in the way you described it.)

For open source projects it may be useful to buy license for a project, not for seats. That way I can pay one time license for my project and others can modify the design under the same project license.

Unless you are talking about open source hardware, and use proprietary tools but provide schematic, gerbers etc.

[miguelvp]

The author can offer different licenses. Others can't.

Say I start a project called X, I decide to make it open source for everyone to use and other participate but I'm still the original author.
Now company B wants to use it and modify it, but they don't want to disclose their modifications.

They can contact me and ask for a commercial license so they are not bound by the open source agreement so they don't have to disclose their custom code.

So the gain is that since I'm the project creator, I can use other developers collaborations but that doesn't exclude me from offering a commercial license to other parties, but the rest cannot do that.

[Neganur]

The author can offer different licenses. Others can't.

Your customers can offer exactly the same license as you do!

3. Derived Works
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

They can contact me and ask for a commercial license so they are not bound by the open source agreement so they don't have to disclose their custom code.

You cannot restrict commercial use.

Can Open Source software be used for commercial purposes?
Absolutely. All Open Source software can be used for commercial purpose; the Open Source Definition guarantees this. You can even sell Open Source software.

However, note that commercial is not the same as proprietary. If you receive software under an Open Source license, you can always use that software for commercial purposes, but that doesn't always mean you can place further restrictions on people who receive the software from you. In particular, so-called copyleft-style Open Source licenses require that when you distribute the software, you do so under the same license you received it under.

I don't know the parts about proprietary code too well, but iirc you can use proprietary addons with open source software and depending on the open source license even permit proprietary derivative works. So that a company for example can use the open source code in their non-open-source product.

http://opensource.org/osd-annotated

[miguelvp]

You are not getting it, you can release software under many licenses not just one.

What you are quoting is the open source one, but you can still issue regular commercial licenses for the same code without the restrictions of the open source one.

But only if you are the author of such work, not the derived ones, those that choose to use the open source license the are bonded to that agreement.

For example:

http://camaya.net/gloox/licensing/


But we are getting off topic since AutoTRAX is not even open source

[nctnico]

no one answered my question yet but I think that you cannot ask license fees for the use of open source software.
You can sell open source software, but you cannot restrict the use of it nor can you prevent your customers from reselling it.

Yes you can. As the copyright owner you can dictate whatever you want. There are many dual-license open source software packages which are free for non-commercial use and paid for commercial use. See MySQL and Qt (in the past?).

[Neganur]

Although I readily admit I am not an expert in this field, I think there is a confusion here between free software and open source software.

Open source isn't about making money. It's about freedom.

Open source is about the source being open, available. Free software is about freedom. Open source software is not necessarily as free as free software. You can also choose to make money and sell open source software.


As soon as you have released a software with the open software source license you are not in control of it any more. You can still sell the copyright of it but you cannot restrict it in the ways being described in earlier posts.The copyright holder can indeed do whatever he wants and release his code with a different (not open source) license, he can however not retract any licensed code already published.

Yes you can. As the copyright owner you can dictate whatever you want. There are many dual-license open source software packages which are free for non-commercial use and paid for commercial use. See MySQL and Qt (in the past?).

If you have licensed open source software you can not go ahead and prohibit commercial use. It must have been a different license than open source software. From what I can see, the part you are paying for is the proprietary application that the MySQL is embedded in or bundled with in the case that a company does not want to be subject to the GPL license that MySQL is licensed under. From my understanding in this case Oracle is selling a copyright (and it seems they call it 'license').

For the majority of what was said I think we're in violent agreement :p I'm just being a bit nit picky about some things I believe are not in the right context (and am happy to be proven wrong of course!)

[tdys]

software guy here. Open source just means the source is available. What you can do with it depends on the licence. Not all open source is GPL or BSD. QT used to have a lot of comercial restrictions (ie. you had to pay a lot to create comercial software).

[Neganur]

If you have licensed open source software you can not go ahead and prohibit commercial use.

You certainly can, just write it into the licence. Some OS licences prohibit military use, for example.

hmm ok, that's in conflict with what the open source initiative (OSI) is defining as open source in the very first paragraph: source and their FAQ

1. Free Redistribution
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

Although military use is probably not a commercial use.

So I guess what the OSI defines as open source software is just another license among other similar licenses, and all they really are doing is to "ensure that licenses and software labelled as "open source" conforms to existing community norms and expectations" ?

[Neganur]

Actually, I think I know where I went wrong: I assumed that the OSI are the only ones defining open source software. They clearly are not.

what a pain in the arse

[zapta]

This issue of open source came up in this thread in the context of is DEX a good fit for open source projects? Not wether DEX should be open source itself.

[Neganur]

I don't think that was what miguelvp and mojo-chan were talking about. Unless I'm mistaken they clearly spoke about software.

[miguelvp]

I don't think that was what miguelvp and mojo-chan were talking about. Unless I'm mistaken they clearly spoke about software.

I was just responding to your question, even if I stated that:

But we are getting off topic since AutoTRAX is not even open source

Not sure why we are still talking about open source or whatever, it's Iliya's decision since it is His software.

[Neganur]

I was talking about open source software since it was mentioned here by several people in the context of DEX, open hardware projects and competing software and whether or not an open source model for hardware requires the release of the project files in an open model too (or if pdf files + gerbers is enough).

Sorry if it bored you. I received some good answers though, so thanks!

[miguelvp]

It didn't bore me nor bother me, but it's derailing the topic.