Nothing prevents clone products appearing on the market. Look at all the various linux distributions, for example. The X.org project was forked from XFree86. And so on.
It happens relatively infrequently, though, for a couple of reasons:
The original project has the first-to-market advantage
The original is usually being given away free
So unless your version is significantly better than the original, you're not going to get much uptake or make much money out of it. If your version is significantly better, then go ahead!
From the original developer's point of view, the power of the GPL is that it forces such clones to share any improvements with the rest of the world, so they can be incorporated back into the original.
You can make a derivative work of any project based on one of the popular licenses (i.e. GPL, LGPL, Apache, MIT, BSD).
You may charge money for at least the distribution & packaging of your derivative work.
Depending on the license, you may also have to distribute your modifications in source form and/or include notices in your distribution.
So to your question about Apaxe: yes, you can do this as far as I know. I believe that the Oracle HTTPD server is actually derived from Apache, and it's definitely not free!
Here's my 10,000 foot view of open source licenses:
"Real" open source licenses (eg: MIT, BSD, Apache I think, etc.): You can do whatever you want with licensing derived works. It can be closed, open, etc. The license places no restrictions on your licensing of derived works.
"Restricted" open source licenses (eg: GPL, LGPL): Derived works must include specific license restrictions; for example, the GPL requires derived works to be GPL-ed. Essentially your rights are restricted for derived works.
Charging for products is separate from either of these; neither type restricts charging for products, although some licenses place restrictions on the rights you can retain and/or must convey to receivers of your software (ie: the "Restricted" licenses).
Hope this helps.
Edit: Changed by original "DRM" term for GPL type licenses to "Restricted", cause some people attach negative connotations to DRM, and/or cannot grasp how the GPL restricts your rights for derived works in an almost identical way to any other type of DRM (ie: controlling what you can do with it). Seriously, you can be a FSF supporter and still grok the concept that the GPL is more restrictive than "real" open source licenses. The question is not about which type is right or wrong, it's about what the difference is.
Red Hat(以及大多数其他 Linux 供应商)收取支持费用,而不是收取软件费用 - 这主要是公司通过 GPL 许可的代码赚钱的方式。
Red Hat (and most of the other Linux vendors) charge for support, not for their software - which is primarily how companies can make money off of code that is GPL licensed.
It really depends on the license the open source project uses.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer; you should always read the license for full details.
If a project is under the GPL, then anything you derive from it must also be released under the GPL (or a compatible license, and if it is released at all). You're still allowed to charge money for it, but anyone who buys it has to be provided with the full source, and you can't prevent them also selling it, or giving it away for free.
If a project is under the BSD license, you can do pretty much anything with it including incorporate it into a proprietary closed source product. There is BSD code inside Windows!
What prevents from similar ( clone ) products from appearing in the market?
Nothing. The real question is: How can a similar cloned product get more popular than the original product?
Some cases where somebody might clone/fork a project:
Picking up a dead open source project and continuing its development. If the new derived product is maintained regularly and it gets more updates than the original version, then people will start using the new version. This is one of the big benefits of open source - good software does not need to die, just because the original developers stop developing it, but someone else can continue from where they were left. One example of such a project (which I've used) is that the development of Turck MMCache had died out in 2003, so eAccelerator forked it and continued its development in 2004. I'm sure there are lots of other examples.
There is a disagreement in the developer community of an open source project, and the project splits into two. That's why it's best to strive for a common understanding in open source projects, so that the community would not be split needlessly. If a project is split, the projects may continue living if they managed to attract enough developers and users, but otherwise they may slowly die. In general, splitting should be avoided, because it makes the community more fragmented and weaker. IIRC, in the video presentations of Producing Open Source Software (good stuff!) they mentioned a case where the original developer of some project wanted to take a completely new direction in the development, but the community of other developers wanted to keep the old direction. The result was that the original developer was kicked out of the project, so he created a fork of the project, while the rest of the community continued the development of the original project.
A commercial closed source derivative of an open source project which was released under a permissive license (for example BSD). The derived product would need to be considerably better in features or in support than the original product. Otherwise people will prefer using the original open and free product.
这不正是红帽所做的吗? 即使他们有 Fedora,他们的 Linux 发行版也是收费的。 当然,他们已经为其编写了大量代码,但它仍然基于开源内容。
Isn't that essentially what red hat does? Even though they have fedora, they are charging money for their linux distribution. Granted, they've written a lot of code for it, it's still based on open source-stuff.
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没有什么可以阻止克隆产品出现在市场上。 例如,看看所有不同的 Linux 发行版。 X.org 项目是从 XFree86 分叉出来的。 等等。
不过,这种情况发生的频率相对较低,原因如下:
因此,除非您的版本明显优于原始版本,否则您不会获得大量吸收或从中赚很多钱。 如果您的版本明显更好,那么就继续吧!
从原始开发者的角度来看,GPL 的力量在于它迫使此类克隆与世界其他地方分享任何改进,以便它们可以重新合并到原始版本中。
Nothing prevents clone products appearing on the market. Look at all the various linux distributions, for example. The X.org project was forked from XFree86. And so on.
It happens relatively infrequently, though, for a couple of reasons:
So unless your version is significantly better than the original, you're not going to get much uptake or make much money out of it. If your version is significantly better, then go ahead!
From the original developer's point of view, the power of the GPL is that it forces such clones to share any improvements with the rest of the world, so they can be incorporated back into the original.
一般来说,我对许可证的理解是:
对于您关于 Apaxe 的问题:是的,据我所知,您可以这样做。 我相信 Oracle HTTPD 服务器实际上是从 Apache 派生的,而且它绝对不是免费的!
Generally, my read of the licenses is:
So to your question about Apaxe: yes, you can do this as far as I know. I believe that the Oracle HTTPD server is actually derived from Apache, and it's definitely not free!
这是我对开源许可证的 10,000 英尺视图:
“真正的”开源许可证(例如:我认为是 MIT、BSD、Apache 等):
您可以使用许可衍生作品做任何您想做的事情。 它可以是封闭的、开放的等。该许可证对您的派生作品的许可没有任何限制。
“受限”开源许可证(例如:GPL、LGPL):
衍生作品必须包含特定的许可限制; 例如,GPL 要求派生作品必须采用 GPL 格式。 本质上,您对衍生作品的权利受到限制。
产品收费与其中任何一项都是分开的; 尽管某些许可证对您可以保留和/或必须向软件接收者转让的权利进行了限制(即“受限”许可证),但这两种类型都不限制产品收费。
希望这可以帮助。
编辑:将 GPL 类型许可证的原始“DRM”术语更改为“受限”,导致某些人对 DRM 赋予负面含义,和/或无法理解 GPL 如何以与任何其他类型几乎相同的方式限制您对派生作品的权利DRM(即:控制您可以用它做什么)。 说真的,您可能是 FSF 支持者,但仍然认为 GPL 比“真正的”开源许可证更具限制性。 问题不在于哪种类型是对还是错,而在于区别是什么。
Here's my 10,000 foot view of open source licenses:
"Real" open source licenses (eg: MIT, BSD, Apache I think, etc.):
You can do whatever you want with licensing derived works. It can be closed, open, etc. The license places no restrictions on your licensing of derived works.
"Restricted" open source licenses (eg: GPL, LGPL):
Derived works must include specific license restrictions; for example, the GPL requires derived works to be GPL-ed. Essentially your rights are restricted for derived works.
Charging for products is separate from either of these; neither type restricts charging for products, although some licenses place restrictions on the rights you can retain and/or must convey to receivers of your software (ie: the "Restricted" licenses).
Hope this helps.
Edit: Changed by original "DRM" term for GPL type licenses to "Restricted", cause some people attach negative connotations to DRM, and/or cannot grasp how the GPL restricts your rights for derived works in an almost identical way to any other type of DRM (ie: controlling what you can do with it). Seriously, you can be a FSF supporter and still grok the concept that the GPL is more restrictive than "real" open source licenses. The question is not about which type is right or wrong, it's about what the difference is.
Red Hat(以及大多数其他 Linux 供应商)收取支持费用,而不是收取软件费用 - 这主要是公司通过 GPL 许可的代码赚钱的方式。
Red Hat (and most of the other Linux vendors) charge for support, not for their software - which is primarily how companies can make money off of code that is GPL licensed.
这实际上取决于开源项目使用的许可证。
免责声明:我不是律师; 您应该始终阅读许可证以获取完整的详细信息。
如果一个项目遵循 GPL,那么您从该项目派生的任何内容也必须在 GPL(或兼容许可证,如果它已发布)下发布。 你仍然可以对其收费,但任何购买它的人都必须提供完整的来源,并且你无法阻止他们也出售它,或免费赠送它。
如果一个项目采用 BSD 许可证,您几乎可以用它做任何事情,包括将其合并到专有的闭源产品中。 Windows里面有BSD代码!
其他许可证介于两者之间。
It really depends on the license the open source project uses.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer; you should always read the license for full details.
If a project is under the GPL, then anything you derive from it must also be released under the GPL (or a compatible license, and if it is released at all). You're still allowed to charge money for it, but anyone who buys it has to be provided with the full source, and you can't prevent them also selling it, or giving it away for free.
If a project is under the BSD license, you can do pretty much anything with it including incorporate it into a proprietary closed source product. There is BSD code inside Windows!
Other licenses fall somewhere in between.
看看MyEclipse,它真的只是eclipse+免费插件+myeclipse的插件而且要花一些钱。
look at MyEclipse, its really just eclipse+free plugins+myeclipse's plugins and it cost some money.
没有什么。 真正的问题是:类似的克隆产品如何比原始产品更受欢迎?
在某些情况下,有人可能会克隆/分叉一个项目:
选择一个已经死亡的开源项目并继续其开发。 如果新的衍生产品得到定期维护并且比原始版本获得更多更新,那么人们就会开始使用新版本。 这是开源的一大好处 - 好的软件不需要消亡,仅仅因为原始开发人员停止开发它,但其他人可以从他们离开的地方继续。 这种项目的一个例子(我已经使用过)是 Turck MMCache 已于 2003 年消亡,因此 eAccelerator 分叉了它并在 2004 年继续开发。我确信有还有很多其他例子。
某个开源项目的开发者社区出现分歧,该项目一分为二。 这就是为什么最好在开源项目中争取共识,这样社区就不会出现不必要的分裂。 如果一个项目被拆分,如果能够吸引足够的开发者和用户,这些项目可能会继续存在,但否则它们可能会慢慢消亡。 一般来说,应该避免分裂,因为它会使社区更加分裂和脆弱。 IIRC,在制作开源软件(好东西!)的视频演示中,他们提到了一个案例,其中原始开发人员一些项目希望在开发中采取全新的方向,但其他开发人员的社区希望保持旧的方向。 结果是原来的开发者被踢出了项目,于是他创建了项目的一个分叉,而社区的其他人则继续原来项目的开发。
开源项目的商业闭源衍生品,在宽松的许可证(例如 BSD)下发布。 衍生产品在功能或支持方面需要比原始产品好得多。 否则人们会更喜欢使用原始的开放和免费产品。
Nothing. The real question is: How can a similar cloned product get more popular than the original product?
Some cases where somebody might clone/fork a project:
Picking up a dead open source project and continuing its development. If the new derived product is maintained regularly and it gets more updates than the original version, then people will start using the new version. This is one of the big benefits of open source - good software does not need to die, just because the original developers stop developing it, but someone else can continue from where they were left. One example of such a project (which I've used) is that the development of Turck MMCache had died out in 2003, so eAccelerator forked it and continued its development in 2004. I'm sure there are lots of other examples.
There is a disagreement in the developer community of an open source project, and the project splits into two. That's why it's best to strive for a common understanding in open source projects, so that the community would not be split needlessly. If a project is split, the projects may continue living if they managed to attract enough developers and users, but otherwise they may slowly die. In general, splitting should be avoided, because it makes the community more fragmented and weaker. IIRC, in the video presentations of Producing Open Source Software (good stuff!) they mentioned a case where the original developer of some project wanted to take a completely new direction in the development, but the community of other developers wanted to keep the old direction. The result was that the original developer was kicked out of the project, so he created a fork of the project, while the rest of the community continued the development of the original project.
A commercial closed source derivative of an open source project which was released under a permissive license (for example BSD). The derived product would need to be considerably better in features or in support than the original product. Otherwise people will prefer using the original open and free product.
这不正是红帽所做的吗? 即使他们有 Fedora,他们的 Linux 发行版也是收费的。 当然,他们已经为其编写了大量代码,但它仍然基于开源内容。
Isn't that essentially what red hat does? Even though they have fedora, they are charging money for their linux distribution. Granted, they've written a lot of code for it, it's still based on open source-stuff.