First off, let me start by saying I'm documenting the status of all PBooks-related intellectual property for the '''sake and protection of pbooks as free software''', not to weasel any sort of proprietary control of the software for myself or my company.
My Involvement
I devote my time and company resources to PBooks for the following reasons: * To create a bookkeeping software program which we can use to manage our own business finances * To build website traffic and thus advertising revenue for my company * To learn more about the open source development process * To raise awareness about my company as a capable service provider in a professional and courteous manner * To explore alternative revenue models including commercial support, hardware products with PBooks pre-installed, and the use of web-based open source software licensed under the Affero GPL as a software as a service
License Changes?
Not that I would, but in my humble opinion, if I attempted any trickery to switch the license at a point in the future, the result would be detrimental, cause irreparable damage to my own personal relations with the open-source community, and risk curtailing PBooks viability as a successful open source project. The one thing I'm still unsure about is the concept of having two licenses - the AGPL and a commercial license. I don't really understand what the benefits to this are, but it seems to me that there are some cases where it makes sense, and it doesn't seem to piss off the open source community too much, so I might consider it in the future. The caveat here, if I understand correctly, is that I would have to own 100% of the PBooks code copyright, which would mean either no contributors, or contributors would have to assign their copyrights to me. Frankly, my gut tells me that this is more trouble than its worth.
With that in mind, please understand that as the current steward for PBooks, I'm compelled to take the proper measures to try and make sure the legal status of PBooks is clear and free of drama.
To try and do that, I've separated the topic into three main pages:
I'll try to explain on these pages what actions I've taken or am taking to protect PBooks as an independent, open-source project which will hopefully beyond my capacity as steward. Also make sure you read the PBooks License page to learn about the legal obligations which are required for the privilege to copy and use PBooks.