Planned change of license

[stfnp]

Current terms

VirtualBow has been and is currently distributed under the GNU General Public License v3. This license guarantees users the freedom to run, study, share and modify the software with the restriction that any derivative works must be distributed under equivalent license terms. This makes VirtualBow currently fit the definition of open source software and more specifically free software.

An important point of this license, or any license that meets the strict definition of open source, is that there must be no restrictions on who can use the software and for what purpose. This also includes any commercial use.

Planned change

I would like to keep VirtualBow as open as possible while also preserving some options for a possible future monetization of the software. That's why I plan to release future versions under the PolyForm Noncommercial License. This license grants users all the freedoms that the current license does, except that it does not allow commercial use. This means that VirtualBow can still be used, studied, shared and modified freely for personal and academic purposes.

Implementation

The new license can of course only be applied to future releases. Since VirtualBow has received some contributions from other people over the years, I am not the sole copyright holder of the software anymore. This means that I can only do this license change with either the approval of those contributors or in the worst case after removing or rewriting conflicting contributions. To formalize this kind of approval for past and future contributions, VirtualBow contributors will be asked to sign a Contributor License Agreement (CLA).

To do

• Pick a fitting CLA and apply it to this repository by using cla-assistant
• Ask contributors to retroactively sign the CLA for their past contributions
• Rewrite or remove contributions if absolutely necessary
• Apply the new license to the project

[stfnp]

Contributor License Agreement

The CLA is now in place: https://cla-assistant.io/bow-simulation/virtualbow.

It is adapted from the Apache Individual Contributor License Agreement with only minor changes. According to this agreement, contributors retain all rights to their contribution but grant the project the right to distribute the contribution without being bound to any particular license.