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copied!<p>It sounds like your boss was describing a <strong>source license</strong> for your customers. This does have value of course, because it can give customers assurance that the code is high quality. They can do their own code inspection, security auditing, etc. </p> <p>It can also be an alternative to putting source code in <strong>escrow</strong>. Some companies put copies of their code in storage, held by a third party so that in case your company goes bankrupt and disappears, the customer has some access to the code so they can take over maintenance in that event. The agreement between your company and the customer should include a clause for this. If you grant a source license to the customer, you can eliminate the third-party escrow service. You just include in the agreement that if your company evaporates, the customer has non-exclusive license to use and modify your code.</p> <p>Open-source is different, in that <strong>everyone</strong> has a non-exclusive license to use and modify your code, as soon as you publish it. Your company continues to be healthy in the meantime. The users have to adhere to the terms of the license of course, which could add conditions for usage. GPL for example says any of the customer's modifications must also be made available under a compatible license. BSD, on the other hand does not require this.</p> <p>Open source does not <em>necessarily</em> mean <strong>free</strong>. You can charge for code, even though it remains open source. Even GPL permits this. But it's a legitimate question, how can you control or enforce the license if the code is open source?</p> <p>The best solution is that your business value is based on <strong>service</strong> or <strong>access</strong>, instead of simply the code. That is, if the customers are paying a subscription to a news feed, why not make the software that displays the news open source? In that business, maybe you even want the software to distributed widely for free, because it will entice more people to subscribe to your service.</p>

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