Re: [Savannah-users] Help

[list]

On monday, the 30. March 2009 Michael Tarsitano wrote:

>          I have developed a set of computer programs designed to help people
> recovering from a major head trauma.  I wish to distribute these programs 
> to patients at no cost.  The reason is that I feel strongly that no patient 
> should have to pay for the medical treatment he / she needs to recover from 
> an illness or injury.  

That's good!

> I also wish to distribute the source code to these programs so that other 
> doctors or therapist can adapt the programs to meet their own patients’ needs.

That's very good!

> However, I do NOT want any doctor or therapist then selling their modified 
> versions.  This would defeat the goal of these programs – providing a medical 
> tool patients can use for free. 

Sorry, but this is in conflict with the definition of Free Software:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

It says:
| "Free software" does not mean "non-commercial." A free program must be 
| available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial 
| distribution.

But it also says:
| You  may have paid money to get copies of free software, or you may have 
| obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, 
| you always have the freedom to copy and change the software, even to 
| sell copies.

If you put your software under the GPL, modified versions must also be under
the GPL, and thus it is ensured, that the software stays free.
That means, others could offer modified versions for a price, but they cannot 
forbid others to give away that modified versions for free then.

On the other hand, if you would not allow commercial use, it would for 
example not be allowed to bundle your software with devices they sell...
So, commercial use is not always bad!

> Is there any copyright licence that always me to distribute these programs 
> with these goals in mind?

A license that doesn't allow commercial use would not be considered as 
Free Software or Open Source.

> If not, how do I right my own copyright licence?

Free Software supporters will surly not help you with a nonfree license.
So you have to ask elsewhere.

> PS I used Microsoft's Visual Basic 6 to develop these programs.
> Is that a problem?

Savannah only hosts software for completely free operating systems such
as GNU/Linux. 
So Visual Basic itself is not an option. However there are free Basic
implementations for free systems, that claim to be compatible with 
Visual Basic 6. But you have to test it and maybe you have to make changes.
Have a look at KBasic <http://www.kbasic.de/>. There may be others...

-- 
AKFoerster