Is there a license for the software that will distribute it as opensource, but prohibit its use for commercial purposes?

_{All of the following, of course, depends on the jurisdiction. I am describing a "typical practice".}

In the realities of a civilized world that respects copyright, everything that can be done with your product is determined by you, as its author and by default, all except free use (In the West, the equivalent is: fair use) forbidden.

By applying thelicense , you expand the range of permitted actions.

Actually, decide first for yourself: what is opensource? If you interpret the term literally, then "open source". The word "open" is open (hmm) for interpretation. What is it, "software with source code available to everyone"? In this key, simply publishing the source code allows the source code to read (and only because it is published). And that's all, the rest requires explicit permission copyright holders.

And this may be enough.

There are commercial projects with open source, as an example, I will give the studio Wolfire Games. They once burned themselves by publishing the source code of one of theirgames (Lugaru) under such a free license (GPL) that someone simply compiled the source code and put it in the Mac App Store at a price 10 times less than the developer's price. And illegal (still) this fact was made only by the fact that the game consisted not only of its own compiled source code, but also of resources: sounds, graphics, characters-the rights to which remained with their authors, and this was clearly stipulated.

Since then, it seems, no such incidents have occurred with their games. And in the license to the code of one of their games, the following is written:

All rights reserved by Wolfire Games LLC
Please email

if you would like permission to do something with the contents of this repository

Wolfire Games LLC, all rights reserved
Please write to

if you need permission to do something with the contents of this repository

But if your product consists only of program code (or its compiled assembly), the code license defines the rights of third parties to act with the product. And the details already depend on the specific license selected. Say, the GPL or any other recognized Open Source Initiative the license grants the rights and commercial use.

With all this there are many stories of GPL violations, usually forgetting (intentionally or not) to attach copies of the license or publish their changes to the GPL-licensed code. Features of the GPL.

All licenses approved by OSI do not meet your requirements. They have their own definition of "Open Source Definition" , which includes not only the ability to read the source code. For example, the OSD stipulates the free distribution of software, including in compiled form. You're going to prohibit getting the source code from anywhere other than your Github repository.

Total.

You will either have to apply a known license explicitly specify exceptions, or write and use your own license. Both of these approaches are better implement it together with a qualified lawyer, because it will not be easy to formulate a "commercial use".

But first you should think about whether this is necessary. Any widely used license prohibits from" passing off as one's own " (by the obligation to indicate authorship), except for the transfer to the public domain via CC0 or analogs.

People, after all, are not stupid either, and if a certain paid product has a free counterpart, they will use it more often. Therefore, many open (in the sense of OSI) projects are monetized by consultations, support for and additional plug-ins.

Don't treat your users as idiots. And if you come across a company that will monetize a product based on your "open source" (keeping a mention of your authorship and not violating the license), be happy for it and write a few articles on thematic resources, where at the end attach a link to your repository and to the website of the company that deals with this product. It will be a comical situation.

The idea is initially a failure. You will never be able to formalize your "commercial use" in an adequate form. Have you ever thought about what you mean by this phrase?

You write:

For example, anyone can rivet a blozhek or an entertainment portal, but if some uncle makes an online store or any tool for managing his enterprise, it will be punishable.

Blozhek? And if I the artist and I write in one of the blog entries about my prices - is this a commercial use?

A portal? And if an ad block is placed in the corner of the site - is this a commercial use?

Enterprise management? And if I create a free service and give everyone the tools to manage their businesses - is this a commercial use?

When you decide what you mean, you can already talk about something.

However, first decide what to do you want from this very open source. Sortsy open for various reasons:

• Achieve maximum popularity. The more free users you have, the more popular you are, and the more those who are willing to pay will learn about you.

• Simplify the creation of extensions. In case you are too lazy to write high-quality documentation.

• Prove the quality of the code. The client looked at the code and was satisfied.

• And so further.

Let's say you want to gain popularity. In this case, you should take into account that the more obstacles you put in the way of consumers (the need to disclose the varieties, the ban on commercial use, etc.), the less bonuses from open source.

"There are no" standard " licenses with a ban on commercial use, so you will have to write your own license, and this is much more difficult than you think. In addition, it will put an end to normal integration of code with different licenses due to license incompatibility.

You can also use a clever strategy with a change of license, but be prepared for the fact that you will be hated.

In general, I advise you to start with some liberal license like MIT/BSD or Apache, in extreme cases with a viral GPL, in case of paranoia-with the AGPL. They will solve your attribution problems.

At the same time, you will see if anyone needs your code at all. And that's when it will be I think it will be possible to start thinking about what to do. You can't cancel the license for the old versions, of course, but you can continue to develop under a different license.

If you build up fences in advance, you will never know what the real demand is.