Advisory on the DBJ.METHOD IP rights

Author: Dusan B. Jovanovic (dbj@dbj.org)

DBJ Method support and general enquiries: info@dbj.org

Active License: CC BY SA 4.0 — Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International

DBJ Method is dual-licensed.

The public license is CC BY SA 4.0 — it applies to all Users by default.

A commercial license is available from DBJ for Users who require closed-source or proprietary distribution rights. Contact: dbj@dbj.org

This license covers the DBJ Method and all content in this repository.

Dusan B. Jovanovic retains full copyright as author. The license governs all other parties.

Under CC BY SA 4.0, any user of DBJ Method is free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercially

Under these conditions:

Attribution — You must credit Dusan B. Jovanovic (dbj@dbj.org), link to the license, and indicate if changes were made
ShareAlike — If you adapt or build on this material, your derivative work must be distributed under the same CC BY SA 4.0 license

What this means for DBJ Method specifically:

Anyone can use, teach, translate, or build on the methodology — but they cannot close it off. Any derivative work (a consultancy’s adaptation, a training course, a tool built on the framework) must itself be released under CC BY SA 4.0. The ShareAlike clause is the enforcement mechanism: it propagates forward through every derivative, making it structurally impossible for downstream users to proprietize the work.

This is the correct license for methodology and documentation IP. MIT would have permitted commercial enclosure without attribution or reciprocity — inappropriate for this kind of intellectual work.

User rights and obligations under CC BY SA 4.0

Under CC BY SA 4.0, any User must do three things:

Attribution — on every use
Credit the source clearly and visibly:

DBJ Method © Dusan B. Jovanovic (dbj@dbj.org) — CC BY SA 4.0

On a site: in the footer or on a dedicated credits/legal page.
On training material: on the title slide/page and in the document footer.
Link to the license
Include a reference to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ wherever the attribution appears.
ShareAlike — on any adaptation
If the User modifies, extends, or incorporates DBJ Method into their own material (e.g., a methodology based on BPT), that derivative material must also be released under CC BY SA 4.0. The User cannot wrap it in a proprietary license.

What the User does NOT have to do

No permission from DBJ is required to use it
No royalties are due
The User can charge customers for training that uses the material
The User does not need to share their internal business processes — only the derived methodology content itself falls under ShareAlike

Practical risk for the User

If a User creates training material that substantially incorporates DBJ Method and distributes it under a proprietary license — that is a license violation. The ShareAlike clause is what prevents that. DBJ would have standing to enforce it.

Commercial License — the alternative path

DBJ as copyright holder can dual-license the work. CC BY SA 4.0 is the public license — it forces ShareAlike on everyone. DBJ can separately grant a User a private commercial license that overrides ShareAlike and explicitly permits:

Incorporating DBJ Method into proprietary products
Releasing derivative material as closed source
Selling it without attribution or reciprocity obligations

This is standard practice — MySQL (GPL + commercial) and Qt operate the same way.

What that requires:

A written bilateral agreement between DBJ and the User, specifying scope of use, territory, duration, exclusivity, and fee or royalty structure. The User’s obligations under that agreement replace their CC BY SA 4.0 obligations entirely.

The leverage point:

A User cannot obtain closed-source rights without DBJ’s agreement. The CC BY SA 4.0 public license is the default — and it is deliberately restrictive. A commercial license is a negotiated exception, priced accordingly.

If a User wants to build a proprietary training product or consulting framework on top of DBJ Method and sell it as their own IP — that conversation starts with DBJ, not with Creative Commons.

Conclusion

A User needs to negotiate only if they want to release derivative content under a closed/proprietary license.

The trigger is not selling — it’s closing. A User can:

Use DBJ Method commercially ✓
Charge customers for training that incorporates it ✓
Build services around it ✓
All without negotiating anything, under CC BY SA 4.0 as-is.

The moment they want to distribute adapted content without the ShareAlike obligation — that is when they need a commercial license from DBJ. Whether money changes hands is secondary. The legal trigger is the proprietary distribution, not the price tag.