Discrepancy between EULA and FAQ regarding revenue from product vs organization

[mbosecke]

IANAL, but it appears to me that there a clear discrepancy here between the EULA and the FAQ. The italicized emphasis below are my own and are the specific words I want to bring your attention to.

FAQ

The requirement to pay the Maintenance Fee is based on whether the organization generates revenue, not whether the products they offer are free or not

EULA

The Fee applies only to Users that generate revenue by the Software.
Non-revenue-generating use of the Software is exempt from this Fee.

It sounds to me like FAQ cares about the organization generating revenue but the EULA cares if it's the use of the software that generates revenue and those are fundamentally different things.

Again, IANAL, but shouldn't this be slightly reworded in the EULA if the intention is for it to match the FAQ? Or is my reading of this so out to lunch that no one else sees the same discrepancy that I see?

[robmen]

I believe everything holds together. "the Software" in the EULA refers to the output of the Open Source project. The "User" is the person or organization that uses the Open Source project's "Software".

The result should be that if the "User" generates revenue using the Open Source project's "Software" then they pay the fee. There is no mention of "Users" products in the EULA.

I hope that helps make it clearer, not muddier. The FAQ tries to use the "layman's terminology" I've seen others use when asking questions.

Note: I'm also not a lawyer. I just worked closely with the lawyers who wrote the EULA. :)

[AndrewTriesToCode]

So how does the fee apply if they generate revenue but it doesn’t come from how they use my project code?

[robmen]

I don't quite follow the question. Could you provide a more concrete example? That might help me understand.

[AndrewTriesToCode]

Say my code helps with some non revenue generating part of the organization, like an internal help desk api or something. The software supports a cost center in the org so it isn’t “generating revenue” from my project. They may be generating revenue otherwise though e.g. their main product or service.

In the EULA it says non revenue generating use is of the software is exempt but they could still be a for-profit multi million dollar profit company

[robmen]

I suppose someone could try to slice the wording to say that the "support organization" is somehow not part of a revenue-generating company in order to claim the "use of the Software" does not generate revenue. But if the support organization isn't a separate company, that's a stretch. The "use of the Software" is by the revenue-generating company, so the fee would apply.