mirror of
https://github.com/explosion/spaCy.git
synced 2024-09-21 11:29:13 +03:00
134 lines
6.5 KiB
ReStructuredText
134 lines
6.5 KiB
ReStructuredText
=======
|
|
License
|
|
=======
|
|
|
|
.. note:: spaCy is currently in Alpha --- I'm not yet ready to sell full
|
|
licenses. If you're interested in trying it, you should either use it under
|
|
the AGPL, or contact me for a trial commercial license.
|
|
|
|
honnibal@gmail.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
I've been writing spaCy for six months now, and I'm very excited to release it.
|
|
I think it's the most valuable thing I could have built. When I was in
|
|
academia, I noticed that small companies couldn't really make use of our work.
|
|
Meanwhile the tech giants have been hiring *everyone*, and putting this stuff
|
|
into production. I think spaCy can change that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
+------------+-----------+----------+-------------------------------------+
|
|
| License | Price | Term | Suitable for |
|
|
+============+===========+==========+=====================================+
|
|
| Commercial | $5,000 | Life | Production use |
|
|
+------------+-----------+----------+-------------------------------------+
|
|
| Trial | $1 | 90 days | Evaluation, seed startup |
|
|
+------------+-----------+----------+-------------------------------------+
|
|
| AGPLv3 | Free | Life | Research, teaching, hobbyists, FOSS |
|
|
+------------+-----------+----------+-------------------------------------+
|
|
|
|
To make spaCy as valuable as possible, licenses to it are for life. You get
|
|
complete transparency, certainty and control.
|
|
If you need to use spaCy as an API, it's trivial to host it yourself --- and
|
|
you don't need to worry about the service changing or disappearing.
|
|
And if you're ever in acquisition or IPO talks, the story is simple.
|
|
|
|
spaCy can also be used as free open-source software, under the Aferro GPL
|
|
license. If you use it this way, you must comply with the AGPL license terms.
|
|
When you distribute your project, or offer it as a network service, you must
|
|
distribute the source-code and grant users an AGPL license to it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
.. I left academia in June 2014, just when I should have been submitting my first
|
|
grant proposal. Grant writing seemed a bad business model. I wasn't sure
|
|
exactly what I would do instead, but I knew that the work I could do was
|
|
valuable, and that it would make sense for people to pay me to do it, and that
|
|
it's often easy to convince smart people of things that are true.
|
|
|
|
.. I left because I don't like the grant system. It's not the
|
|
best way to create value, and it's not the best way to get paid.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Examples
|
|
--------
|
|
|
|
In order to clarify how spaCy's license structure might apply to you, I've
|
|
written a few examples, in the form of user-stories.
|
|
|
|
Ashley and Casey: Seed stage start-up
|
|
#####################################
|
|
|
|
Ashley and Casey have an idea for a start-up. To explore their idea, they want
|
|
to build a minimum viable product they can put in front of potential users and
|
|
investors.
|
|
|
|
They have two options.
|
|
|
|
1. **Trial commercial license.** With a simple form, they can use spaCy for 90
|
|
days, for a nominal fee of $1. They are free to modify spaCy, and they
|
|
will own the copyright to their modifications for the duration of the license.
|
|
After the trial period elapses, they can either pay the license fee, stop
|
|
using spaCy, release their project under the AGPL.
|
|
|
|
2. **AGPL.** Casey and Pat can instead use spaCy under the AGPL license.
|
|
However, they must then release any code that statically or dynamically
|
|
links to spaCy under the AGPL as well (e.g. if they import the module, or
|
|
import a module that imports it, etc). They also cannot use spaCy as
|
|
a network resource, by running it as a service --- this is the
|
|
loophole that the "A" part of the AGPL is designed to close.
|
|
|
|
Ashley and Casey find the AGPL license unattractive for commercial use.
|
|
They decide to take up the trial commercial license.
|
|
However, over the next 90 days, Ashley has to move house twice, and Casey gets
|
|
sick. By the time the trial expires, they still don't have a demo they can show
|
|
investors. They send an email explaining the situation, and a 90 day extension
|
|
to their trial license is granted.
|
|
|
|
By the time the extension period has elapsed, spaCy has helped them secure
|
|
funding, and they even have a little revenue. They are glad to pay the $5,000
|
|
commercial license fee.
|
|
|
|
spaCy is now permanently licensed for the product Ashley and Casey are
|
|
developing. They own the copyright to any modifications they make to spaCy,
|
|
but not to the original spaCy code.
|
|
|
|
No additional fees will be due when they hire new developers, run spaCy on
|
|
additional internal servers, etc. If their company is acquired, the license will
|
|
be transferred to the company acquiring them. However, to use spaCy in another
|
|
product, they will have to buy a second license.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Alex and Sasha: University Academics
|
|
####################################
|
|
|
|
Alex and Sasha are post-doctoral researchers working for a university. Part of
|
|
their funding comes from a grant from Google, but Google will not own any part
|
|
of the work that they produce. Their mission is just to write papers.
|
|
|
|
Alex and Sasha find spaCy convenient, so they use it in their system under the
|
|
AGPL. This means that their system must also be released under the AGPL, but they're
|
|
cool with that --- they were going to release their code anyway, as it's the only
|
|
way to ensure their experiments are properly repeatable.
|
|
|
|
Alex and Sasha find and fix a few bugs in spaCy. They must release these
|
|
modifications, and they ask that they be accepted into the main spaCy repo.
|
|
In order to do this, they must sign a contributor agreement, ceding their
|
|
copyright. When commercial licenses to spaCy are sold, Alex and Sasha will
|
|
not be able to claim any royalties from their contributions.
|
|
|
|
Later, Alex and Sasha implement new features into spaCy, for another paper. The
|
|
code was quite rushed, and they don't want to take the time to put together a
|
|
proper pull request. They must release their modifications under the AGPL, but
|
|
they are not obliged to contribute it to the spaCy repository, or concede their
|
|
copyright.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Phuong and Jessie: Open Source developers
|
|
#########################################
|
|
|
|
Phuong and Jessie use the open-source software Calibre to manage their e-book
|
|
libraries. They have an idea for a search feature, and they want to use spaCy
|
|
to implement it. Calibre is released under the GPLv3. The AGPL has additional
|
|
restrictions for projects used as a network resource, but they don't apply to
|
|
this project, so Phuong and Jessie can use spaCy to improve Calibre. They'll
|
|
have to release their code, but that was always their intention anyway.
|