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I currently have an open source project that is licensed under GPLv3. I'd like to dual license it, so I can offer it for commercial use. Are there any resources for choosing or creating a commercial software license?

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I think most proprietary licenses are copyrighted themselves... – Federico Culloca Aug 18 '11 at 9:05
I could be wrong, but some open source licenses prohibit commercial use, even for the owner. I would be careful to not dual license with conflicting licenses. The Lesser GPL might be a good fit though. It is usually used in favor of GPL when proprietary software will be built off of something. – Morgan Herlocker Aug 29 '11 at 17:22
@MorganHerlocker Clause 6 of the Open-Source Definition rejects such licenses. About "even for the owner": IANAL, but if he's the sole owner of the copyright, he can license it pretty much any way he sees fit. – luiscubal Apr 28 at 23:33

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I think Binpress' commercial license generator is excellent: http://www.binpress.com/license/generator

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Besides the reference to Binpress in the payments section, this is great, thanks. – Sean Fujiwara Aug 29 '11 at 21:01
It didn't quite work as well for me.... not enough customization. – Webnet Mar 19 at 15:14
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Creative Commons. GNU. And you can find hundreds of examples at Law school web sites and even use existing EULA content and edit it to suit your needs. ALWAYS have your efforts reviewed by a competent attorney.

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Creative Commons and the GPL are both copyleft licenses that protect users. I'm looking for a license that allows companies to use the code the same way they would use proprietary code, but protects my copyright and the project's ability to remain open source. – Sean Fujiwara Aug 19 '11 at 21:31
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I think most people just copy the EUA from some big software package from a big scary company.

Remember to replace Microsoft/Orace/whoever with your own name! There was the case of a database+programming language tools company big in the 90s that famously forgot!

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I agree. Those companies pay a lot of lawyers a lot of money, so they must have a good contract. But I prefer a more "friendly" agreement to make the customer more comfortable. – xpda Aug 24 '11 at 2:44
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Little known fact: Most companies copyright their publicly available licenses(EULAs, Privacy Policies, etc) and even if they don't explicitly copyright it, it's still "assumed" to be copyrighted under US law (note, IANAL) – Earlz Aug 29 '11 at 16:51
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Yes that's why it was particularly embarrassing for the company that did the copy+paste! – Martin Beckett Aug 29 '11 at 19:03
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What you want is a free software license without copyleft?

Because, GNU GPL, GNU LGPL and GNU FDL, allow commercial use.

If you want to link with proprietary software, then use the GNU LGPL.

If copyleft is not desired I suggest you to use the lib/libpng license.

You may just put the license as a comment on those source code files. Or cite properly elsewhere.

From the FSF and GNU view proprietary software is a unethical thing: It's take away people freedom and commonly impose Digital Restrictions Management (DRM).

Some useful links to know more about this ethical issue:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy
http://upgradefromwindows8.com

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