software licensing
Are there any software licenses that would allow anyone free use but require sponsorship for commercial use?
<p>By &quot;free use&quot;, I mean modification, distribution, whatever one would like, but if it is used commercially, then adopting companies would be obligated to support the maintainers.</p>
<p>There is <a href="https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/9805/can-i-license-my-project-with-an-open-source-license-but-disallow-commercial-use">a similar thread on Open Source</a> but it doesn't apply here because I don't mind commercial use; I also don't care if the license I'm looking for is filed under &quot;open source&quot;, &quot;free software&quot;, etc. until it satisfies the above parameters.</p>
<p>The reason I'm asking is that it could be that others already tried, and it was determined unviable, but I couldn't find anything.</p>

<h2>Divide and conquer</h2>
<p>As the copyright owner, you can offer your stuff under any number and variety of licenses. They don't need to be compatible with each other. Users will pick the license(s) they need and obey them severally.</p>
<p>Thus, you can say to your prospective users: do you make money with my stuff? Then you must use the commercial license. Otherwise feel free to use the free one.</p>
