Free for Academic Use License

Question

I am a mathematics research fellow at the university, and I have released a code toolkit that is mainly used for research but may have applications in engineering and industry.

I would like to get a license that basically says: "You can use this code freely if you are at university and use it to publish, study teaching, but not if you are in the industry - in this case, please pull the wallet. "

CC-NC-BY-SA will look perfect for my eyes, but using it for code is very discouraged, I suppose, for good reasons. None of the other open source licenses seem to do what I want. Writing your own license looks like a legal mess, and I would rather avoid that.

How would you solve this problem?

Related questions (but not the same): https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1232666/proper-open-source-license-to-release-academic-code , https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6443110/ practicalities-of-licensing-academic-software

Answer 1

I assume the toolbar is written by you, and you want to share it with other scientists. If someone in the industry makes millions, you want your share (well, an example of a sunny day).

I do not know any licenses that are close to this.

CC-NC-BY-SA is discouraged for two reasons:

• CC licenses are not intended for software. They do not know anything about the two most famous forms of software: Object code (binary, compiled) and Source code (author's version).
• Non-Commercial. undefined what this term means, especially legally.

So, you use your moral and subjective everyday conditions, and every person on the planet understands quite closely what you mean, but including this in the license for software related to copyright is problematic.

I'm not a lawyer, but maybe some kind of passive licensing will suit your needs. There simply is no license, you put your term:

"you can use this code freely if you are at university and use it to publish, study teaching, but not if you are in the industry - in this case, please pull the wallet

and then say that it is in your own words, you make a decision about the meaning in case it is unclear now or in the future. (If you talk with your lawyer, it will be suggested that you should waive the warranties and those that are usually offered.)

Most of the academic users I bet on are fine. Commercial users are under pressure for more clarification, so you can run contracts. Completion of the assignment.

On the other route, you will be operating under a strong copyleft license such as AGPL. This will attract user rights (so you will give a lot), however it will be typical for something because they should offer the software to all their users in AGPL, including their changes and additions.

In addition, you can offer “commercial” licenses (AGPL does not prohibit commercial use, but this requires the preservation of software freedom) as long as you own the copyright.

Probably a little suspicious policy of "I do not name any license" or something that can give you (strong copyleft) + X can do this. There are pros and cons to either of these two paths, so chew a little and maybe you get a third idea that will do it for you.

However, I do not know any existing licenses that cover your case. You can find some research because I'm usually not interested in licenses that are only for certain user groups (for example, only for scientists, only for non-profit), because the boundaries are not clear.