The GPL gives you about as much protection as you could want. The 'viral' nature of the license ensures that, should they wish to distribute any program based on your code, they must provide that program to users under the terms of the GPL.

So if you provide them with the source under the GPL (unlike the BSD license), they have to provide it to others under that license, and part of the GPL says you have to provide the text of the license:

1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
along with the Program.
[download]

It's all there in the GPL. It's good readin'.

I may be wrong--Jouke probably knows the situation far better--but it seems like the GPL license will only solve one of his problems; namely, it will prevent the program from being sold to the loss of those who can't afford it.

What it won't do is solve the problem of distribution. Because of his intended target, he can't just put the project up on sourceforge and expect the people who need it to find it. That leaves just word-of-mouth, which is slow, or the person Jouke mentioned. The person will probably spread the news faster and further if motivated. If he wants to help people, then the GPL should solve problems without introducing new ones. But if the person is only motivated by money (which I suspect, given that the chatterbox was inconclusive), then the problem may not be solved.

And no, I don't have any ideas. :(

There is no reason you need to do this alone. Your software looks like it fills a huge need, and there are smart people who will be glad to help you promote your free software, even if they don't know anything about GPL.

If distribution is an issue: you probably should contact The Association for the Advancement of Assistive Technology in Europe. You should consider presenting your software at assistive technology conferences, where people who make buying decisions will see it. This is where your vendor friend would probably go to advertise in their vendor area. You could present a paper or "poster session" which would get you free publicity.

You might qualify for technology grants to develop (and possibly market) this yourself; in the U.S. the government offers funds for "Small Business Innovation Research" which would likely cover this development, to the tune of $30,000 for six months and/or $100,000 for three years.

Since you own the copyright on the software you could license pVoice to vendors under a non-GPL license that states that they can charge no more than $x for the software to cover their advertising/distribution costs. If you want to do any deals with vendors, you should find a local business lawyer to back you up; you know the vendors will have a legal staff, so you should too. If you look hard you might find one who will take this up pro bono or at heavily discounted rates.

Finally, you might want to do a google search for assistive technology netherlands and see who comes up. There are almost certainly non-profit organizations that would jump at the chance to help; possibly acting as an "umbrella organization" to get you grants to do further development; and provide advertising and distribution assistance.

Sorry if these recommendations seem obvious or too basic; I wanted to make sure all the bases are covered!

---
-DA
[download]

Indeed I'm worried about the distribution. In fact I don't really care if anyone tries to make a profit out of my product. I do care if the eventual customer does not understand things like the GPL, buys the product for maybe $400 from a supplier, and never hears about the free availability of the product.

It's a new thing, and it will take time before the (small) market for this hears about it, and about its costs. Before that a lot of possible suppliers may have had the opportunity to sell it for a lot of money, which is -under the terms of the GPL- legal business.

We -as perlmonks- know about free software, and that free is not the same as bad (in fact, more often the opposite), but the large crowd out there still doesn't know about it.

Jouke Visser, Perl 'Adept'

...It's almost like we're doing Windows users a favor by charging them money for something they could get for free, because they get confused otherwise...

I don't believe they have to mention that it is free. I wish the thing was called the Free Code GPL so it was more obvious.

Don't forget there's a lot of end-users out there that still don't trust something unless they pay for it. (I wonder if that means they trust hookers more than wives? ...hrmm). So people who might not otherwise hear or know about your code might be more apt to use it if it's 'Distributed'.

Anyways the GPL at least keeps them from claiming it's their code, and those that know how to do it free are able to.

It seems to me that it's not distribution that's the issue, but marketing. Here are a few random thoughts.

• Get a website for the users of the product. Try and get pVoice.org or something like that.
• Tell everyone you know about it.
• Write articles about the software. Start with things like www.perl.com or The Perl Journal. You'll only reach techies - but we all have friends and family.
• Find out what organisations would have members who would like this software. Create a press release. Emphasis the fact that it's free.

Let me know if I can be any help.

"Perl makes the fun jobs fun
and the boring jobs bearable" - me