Hi @jrich8774 ,
I’d like to know if you got response from @Kai regarding the question you put up…There’s large possibility of services that can be built around openhab which I want to explore…
@Kai thanks for your clarifications you provided on this communication thread.
Yes he did. I would be happy to share his reply with you via e-mail, if you wish. (BTW: Since I don’t have a great deal of experience with forums, perhaps you could help with how best to go about sharing his reply with you. I don’t think providing e-mail addresses on the forum, or posting his reply on the forum, is a good idea, so if you know of a better way to get the information to you let me know.)
Hi @jrich8774 ,
thanks for your response… I am unable to send you a private message at the moment…if the response can be posted here if appropriate… it will be helpful for other community members as well.
Thanks!
Can you private message me? (Assuming you know how, because I don’t.) If you PM me with your e-mail address I will send you Kai’s reply to my questions.
Hi, I also want to know the reply given by Kai. I dropped him a mail few days back for which i didnt got a response yet. I think, he might have missed it. It would be great if you can share his reply thru PM to me.
Pm me your mail
Hello, do you think it would be possible to post the reply here for others to read please?
I believe you can contact OH foundation itself. Even though the foundation is non-profit org, it doesn’t mean they won’t help out an young entrepreneur trying to make world a slightly better place.
Pm me your mail
good morning Mr. KAI … I am a young entrepreneur, who has been working for more than 2 years and updating my automation system under the OPENHAB platform.
thanks to this has had a lot of welcome among the people who visit my home, recently I have been raised a business idea, I would like to know, if it is possible to use your platform for economic purposes, I am creating a company called lightSmartHome in which I plan to configure and distribute the openHAB platform under the name of LIghtSmartHome, I would like to know if this is possible or how I can do to market the OPenhab software by following and complying with the agreements in the licenses … in my system I only use the mqtt protocol for everything, since Create and reconfigure devices that use the ESP8266 module
Hi Ariel,
I am sure Kai and foundation members will give you the guidance you seek, better than myself.
From legal perspective, after reading license terms in EPL, it is clear enough you can use OH / ESH code for commercial purposes. However, you are expected to be kind enough to “give back” whatever you learned from field experience, to this community. Bug reports / code enhancements etc. EPL doesn’t require you to disclose your own addons/bindings code. But whatever changes you make to EPL code, must be made public.
I wold also advise you not to link with any GPL code, that is incompatible with EPL, and you must disclose entire source of the application. Currently OH/ESH doesn’t have any GPL code. You may call GPL code as an external process and pipe in the output.
You may use Apache/MIT/LGPL code within openhab instance. But with LGPL, you need to disclose changes.
Above is not a legal advise in any way, you need to hire your own lawyers. 
Regarding funding / investor relations, the foundation members could have pointers, and they will help you if they want.
Regarding dedicated prioritized support from OH, I am unaware of any openHAB pro concept. There might be companies who offer such a support all by themselves, people could refer you to those, but foundation as far as I know doesn’t refer to any such firm.
can sell it system in my contry in my own company and help to the OH comunity with my advances
OH is an evolutionary open source project. Although I feel that it is the greatest thing since grandma’s cornbread (sliced of course). To present it as a professional commercial product could be challenging.
I have no experience with programming, that being said I have devoted every spare second reading the OH community posts. I am still trying to grasp ALL of what OH has to offer. So… right now it’s fun and interesting. My concern is if an automation contractor has a problem would you expect someone like a volunteer developer to solve an issue that you can’t? Control4 has a home automation business with factory support i.e. spend the money, become a distributor and start your business. Once OH becomes a job it’s no longer something that you want to do. These amazing developers do this because they want to. Turn it into a job and the participation will disappear. Please seek profit where the risk is of your own making. Sorry about the lengthy rant but as a commercial automation contractor (only commercial buildings, Automated Logic) it hits me wrong that someone would want to profit from something intended so kindly and freely almost a gift.
Now everything is in EPL. So, I feel there should not be any issue to build with your commercial distribution using openhab.
Except you can not sell it without permission as openHAB as the name is trademarked.
I think the idea was to allow phrases like “featured by openHAB Core” or similar. That was the condition that Markus made when ESH merged back into Core afaik?
I know about the code merge. Is ESH going away eventually then?
I realize it would be a long journey that is beginning with these first steps.
ESH is abandoned, yes.