As I’ve wrote in the past, even for an open-source project, in order to comply with licensing, for AAX, AUv3, VST2* and iOS app, you cannot use the GPL based clause.
So my goal is simple, distribute the same open-source project also for those “closed” platforms.
I do make a living as a freelancer and through an employer. So is the “Personal” tier works here?
So with JUCE8, the concept of personal is that you can simply use this tier to make (distribute…) things that does not translate to financial profit?
Also, noteworthy, some open-source projects allows donations, how is that working with those cases?
Again, the specific post is about fully open-source permissive projects.
To the best of my knowledge that is indeed a use case that the new personal tier allows or as least makes possible for users (such as yourself) who didn’t qualify before. The only bit I’m less sure about is donations. I’ll see if we can get an answer for you regarding this.
1.2.1 Personal Licences
A Personal licence may only be used by private individuals on projects for their own personal and non-commercial use. Any use of the Framework for profit or commercial gain requires an Indie or Pro licence.
I think that the definition of personal and non-commercial use should be specified in the EULA. Besides donations, would you consider video monetization also as commercial?
BTW, I think it would be really helpful if you could mention the AGPLv3 somewhere except Github (perhaps in the EULA or on the website?) so that new users will be more aware of this option.
I would like to understand if Juce 8 Personal license will cover the use case where i deploy a closed source app on iOS store with free cost (no money from it). Do you treat free as commercial ?
Personal license in this scenario will help newbie developers to see if an app is interesting when free and them switch to Indie license when it has a cost and the developer makes money from it
I’m still confused about the Personal tier.
So, open-source or not, I can use it for free products regardless of my own revenue?
Meaning, for products that aren’t generating revenue, even if me or my employee got licenses, I can use the Personal umbrella for free products?
Theoretically, can this also be applied for any company doing a freebie?
The other thing that I’d appreciate feedback of (also for others reading this thread) is:
Donations which exists in GitHub projects as an example.
Ads (even this isn’t something I’m using, I guess it’ll be worth addressing).
The Personal tier can only be used by individuals. If you have an employee “you” are not an individual, and you cannot use a Personal licence for that entity.
I think it may be clearer if we got rid of the Personal tier and just had Starter, Indie and Pro.
“Total revenue generated by your use of JUCE” is intended to mean all donations, advertising, streams, and any other indirect benefit that generates money. We’ll add additional language in the EULA.
This is quite confusing.
At least in some countries I can be employed and still have my own revenue as a freelance.
So by having an employee in addition to releasing software on my behalf I’m not entitled for the personal license?
Even on the AppStore, you can still take part in a company team but also have your own individual developer account.
“Total revenue generated by your use of JUCE” is intended to mean all donations, advertising, streams, and any other indirect benefit that generates money. We’ll add additional language in the EULA.
This is again confusing for people who use JUCE daily by employee (and use the license provided by the employee) and also want to use JUCE on different terms, (unless they intended to only go AGPL which
OK, let’s assume we drop the Personal tier. Then we can focus on the applicable revenue wording.
If you work for a company, using a licence seat the company supplies, this is not “your” use of JUCE: that company is the owner of their Product, they supply the licence to work on that product, so that is “their” use of JUCE.
If you are the owner/director of a company that is a separate legal entity from yourself, and that company uses JUCE, then that company will require its own licences. These are not “your” licences as an individual.
The Starter plan pretty much makes the “Personal” redundant as you mentioned.
Upcoming revised EULA should better separate between an individual and a company (mostly relevant for revenue limits and JUCE licenses)
For a user-story of open-source:
GPL or similar can be used if binaries can be distributed as-is (or additional GPL complaint ones).
If there’s need to link-against non GPL compliant, “Starter” tier can be used, consideration is, if there are donations/sponsoring for a project, they must be within the revenue limits of Starter.
The last thing to figure out is the case where project has permissive license (fully open-sourced) based on JUCE (such as a JUCE module). - Note this was discussed on the bigger thread. but I must admit I didn’t fully understand if an additional seat will be required by someone using an open-source JUCE based utility (for the open-source owner) or not.
