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LICENSE
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LICENSE
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Troy Rollo's "Sponsorware" License
Synopsis
How we can continue to provide software to you free of charge while still covering rising costs.
Preamble
Ten years ago, it was easy to find free software for all environments. Today, finding free software for Windows is a difficult task. Most of the offerings on public archive sites are "shareware", requiring payment for continued use.
Much of the move to shareware has been attributed to the rising costs of the production of this software. Development tools are more expensive, and expensive CD-ROM subscriptions are required to stay abreast of changes.
In addition to these problems, new problems have arisen with the recent explosion of interest in the Internet. Every man and his dog is now able to publish, and at times the material published can be slanderous or wildly inaccurate. Producing software for free means that the author is exposed to this sort of treatment without receiving any funds with which to fight it.
A further area of concern is that of trademarks. While the trademark of a free software product does have the protection of law, the cost of pursuing a trademark abuse case in the courts is upwards of $US20,000, not including the travel costs required to proceed with a case on the other side of the world, and in order to claim compensation (for instance, the cost of the proceedings), you must have the trademark registered in a jurisdiction recognised by the court (this means having registration in at least your own country, the USA, and at least one European country) - more money.
The sponsorware concept is aimed at providing an alternative to fund the costs of development without having to sacrifice the free nature of the software. Sponsorware may be either Free Software as defined by Richard Stallman, or public domain, the only difference being that sponsorware is distributed with paid advertising material contained in it, and that any redistribution of the software in verbatim or modified form must contain that advertising until a stated date. There may also be an exclusion on including advertising from vendors competing with existing advertisers.
If you contact a company as a result of advertising in sponsorware, you should let the advertiser know the name of the program which contained the advertisement. By doing this you will encourage further advertising, which will mean more free software for you.
This license may be reproduced and applied to your own programs, either in verbatim or modified form, provided that this preamble remains intact. If you modify the license, you should add a line at the top stating your name, that you have modified the license, and the date of the modification.
Troy Rollo
October 1995
Conditions of the License
1. The documentation for this software and/or the software itself contains advertising material. This advertising material and any links to that advertising material must be included unmodified in any redistribution of this software at least until the date stated at the start of the advertisement.
2. Some advertisements may contain the text "Non competition clause applies" at the start. If this is the case, you may not include advertising for a product which competes with the product advertised until the advertisement expires as detailed in part 1 of this license. If you are unsure if a product competes with a product in such an advertisement, you should contact the advertiser for their opinion.
3. You are free to redistribute verbatim copies of this software including all existing files and no additional files.
4. You are free to redistribute modified copies of this software provided that:
i) you include the full source code to the modified version of the software.
ii) you include, at the start of the documentation, a notice stating that you have modified the software, stating your name and the release date of the modified version.
iii) you release the entire modified package under the terms of this license without any modification to its terms.
If you make significant enhancements you may also include additional advertising to help meet your costs, or remove any advertising which has expired.
5. You may not remove or modify any credits contained in this software or in its documentation.
6. As you have not signed this license, you are not obliged to accept it, however as nothing else gives you the right to redistribute and modify this software, doing so would be illegal. Consequently, your redistribution or modification of this software will be construed as acceptance of this license.
7. Any person who violates this license loses the right to use, modify and redistribute this software and any software based on it, and may also be required to pay financial compensation to the authors of the software.
8. If you are unable to operate within the terms of this license, you are free to contact the authors to ask for their approval of modifications to it, provided the modifications do not go against the spirit of this license.
9. Because this program is supplied free of charge, it comes without any warranty, including the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a purpose. All risks related to the use of the software are assumed by you, the user.
10. Under no circumstances will anybody who contributes or redistributes this software be liable for any damages relating to your use, misuse or inability to use this software.