Software Licensing Query

Looking for a licence to fit requirements for upcoming script

[Guardian]

Hi

I have been checking the available Licences to see what would best suit my requirements for the release of a BBS script that I am coding in PHP.

Followings are the main requirements:

- Script would be licensed for FREE for personal and non-profit use
- Script can be modified for personal use only
- Any commercial or for-profit use would be subject to licence agreement
- No distribution rights for licensees
- Copy-right of the script would remain with the original author

Additional:
- Community and other coders can provide additional Modules/Styles/Skins to compliment the script for Free or for Fee as per their wishes.

Does anyone know of any licence that meets the above requirements?

Many Thanks
:)

[rogerd]

What you are describing sounds a bit like the arrangement used by the authors of MovableType. You might check movabletype.org to see how their license(s) are written. There's the Gnu license, of course, but that would no doubt require extensive modification to fit your needs. I'd do some searches using "free for personal use" and "software license" to get some language ideas. You may be able to piece together something on your own, but if you are serious about this you should have an attorney review & tune it to comply with local laws.

[Guardian]

Thank you rogerd.

I am reading through and it seems very similar to what I have in mind.

I was hoping to find a ready made licence like ones found at:
[opensource.org ]

I had tried the search patterns before making a post. ;)

Asking a lawyer would always be the best, however, at this stage of development, associated costs cause an obstacle.

:)

[mgream]

The folks at Creative Commons (www.creativecommons.org) and Open Source (www.opensource.org) have put effort into arranging content licenses that are practical and usable for many circumstances without the need to take legal advice. It's worth taking some time to look.

CC is more about a narrow and templatised set of standard licenses built from specific options re. attribution, derivatives, etc. This is the easiest place to start, and hopefully useful for the vast majority of people.

OS is more about accepting, analysing and "approving" licenses that are acceptable to fit under the "open source" banner: here you find a large variety of licenses (BSD, GNU, Sun, X, MIT ...) more tailored to specific needs. It's a bit more complicated here, but useful if you can't fit into the default types (i.e. CC, BSD, GNU).

[Guardian]

Thank you mgream.

I had a look at CC and they have an easy way to find a licence although their licences are designed for a specific area which is not totally compatible with my needs.

OS has a lot of licence and I had already glanced over them. The natures of all licences are based on unlimited access to alter and republish the script. While altering for personal use is perfectly acceptable, redistribution is not. Open Source's main philosophy would not match what I have in mind.

Thanks for the info anyway.
:)