MadMathLabs

I’ve never felt the need to hide the fact that I want to monetize on Traipse OpenRPG. I may not have come out and said it in every conversation, so I am saying it right now. I want to make money with the development of Traipse.

One of my hurdles is the General Public License (GPL). I am a big fan of the GPL but I have been torn in how it absorbs material that has been submitted. This is seen directly in how a plugin becomes GPL or is a violation of the software license.

In an attempt to get around this hurdle I have asked Chris about dual licensing Open RPG with the CCL-By-Sa. While the license is not recommended for software because it does not go into detail about source, it is still a license that can be used for Copyrightable works.

The CCL gives developers a bit more freedom in what they can do with their additions. With the correct permissions from the copyright holders a developer could change the License of the plugin from CCL-By-Sa to CCL-Nd-Nc, which would have been a great way to monetize for everyone.

Unfortunately Chris felt it was unethical, and while I may have shot off at the mouth in my disappointment I should mention that I do respect his ethics.

I have not given up hope on monetizing on the software, but the options are looking bleaker. Over the course of the next few months I will be working on some details to see if I can get a plan of action that I can use to make Open RPG more of a profitable venture. I think with the correct savvy I can create a plan that promotes the free software, retains it’s openness, and still turns me over a profit.

I have not given up on the CCL-By-Sa dual license though. According to the GPL FAQ I need permission from all the other developers .. whom I will be asking.

But probably not Snowdog or Dj. I can’t stand those guys, and I can probably re-work an older version they didn’t touch and get the same effect.

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