New Plugin

[MitchyWoody]

I'm very new to obs and creating obs plugins. I vaguely remember reading somewhere someone saying it wasn't possible to make money selling a plugin created for obs. I've recently developed a plugin for myself that I've considered adaptong and selling. I thought I would double check on here to make sure I wasn't breaking any rules/laws by attempting to sell something like this. Can someone clarify whether this is true about not being able to sell plugins.

Thanks,
Mitchell

 

[Deleted member 121471]

OBS software license does not prevent you from monetizing plugins.

Just don't bundle OBS Studio with your plugin, as the GPLv2 has certain restrictions to guarantee user freedom.

Here's the full license, should answer all doubts you may have:

GNU General Public License v2.0 - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

www.gnu.org

 

[dodgepong]

If you make an OBS plugin, the source code for that plugin has to be open source. You're allowed to sell the plugin, but you also have to make the source code available to anyone who gets the plugin, which means they have the right to post the source code somewhere and release builds of it for free.

So it's not impossible to sell a plugin, but it's often impractical.

 

[Deleted member 121471]

If you make an OBS plugin, the source code for that plugin has to be open source. You're allowed to sell the plugin, but you also have to make the source code available to anyone who gets the plugin, which means they have the right to post the source code somewhere and release builds of it for free.

So it's not impossible to sell a plugin, but it's often impractical.

Need a clarification concerning this. The following line is in the GPL FAQ:

"If the main program and the plugins are a single combined program then this means you must license the plug-in under the GPL or a GPL-compatible free software license and distribute it with source code in a GPL-compliant way. A main program that is separate from its plug-ins makes no requirements for the plug-ins."

Based on what you mentioned, how are optional plugins still bound by the GPL?

 

[dodgepong]

They link against a GPL code base and are not an independent work, so they are still subject to the GPL.

 

[dodgepong]

You're allowed to sell plugins, but you're not allowed to withhold the source code for your plugins, so people would be fully within their right to take your source code and release it for free.