software licensing open-source-software
Retaining maximum free/open-source freedoms in a software license except for source redistribution
<p>There are several free/open-source licenses (e.g. GPLv3, Apache 2.0, MIT) that allow several freedoms to the user of a software.</p>
<p>Generally if you grant access to an individual to use software under one of these licenses, you essentially grant the entire world access to that software under that license, because these licenses permit re-distribution of the software under the same terms by the licensee.</p>
<p>I wanted to know if there also exist standard software licenses which retain most freedoms of such software licenses (freedom to use the software for commercial purpose, patent grants, freedom to modify the code (and in some cases freedom to distribute modified code under a different license)), but with the re-distribution restricted.</p>
<p>The purpose of such a license would be to give the copyright owner the exclusive power of allowing/disallowing use of the software to a licensee. Or are licenses not the correct legal tool for enforcing this?</p>

<p>A license would be a suitable tool for granting specific usage rights while restricting others. However, none of the standard <strong>open source</strong> licenses will serve the purpose described in the question, because this is not an open source situation, as the comment by Amon points out. The essence of an open-source license is permission to redistribute.</p>
<p>A typical commercial license for proprietary software permits the user to use (tun) the software, including for commercial purposes, and warrants that it is free of patent conflicts. Such licenses typically do not permit redistribution of the software, nor of modified versions. They also purport in many cases to prohibit any modification, but it is at least arguable that under US law, a modification for the user's own benefit with no intent to redistribute is a fair use and cannot be prohibited.</p>
<p>In any case, a license which permits modification and distribution of modified code subject to particular restrictions could be written, but no widely published license that I know of will have this effect. A custom license would need to be created, and it would be wise to carefully decide just what rights one wants to convey, and what restrictions one wants to apply, before trying to devise language to implement those decisions. An IP lawyer could help in drafting language, but might not be needed, depending on the situation. In particular, a developer would need to determine just what restrictions are to apply to the distributions of modified versions of the software. Some concepts and even language from open source licenses could perhaps be reused, but only with significant changes.</p>
