I am starting to work on a new commercial software project that may use elements of "open source" code.
I have been instructed to ensure that I only use code which is licensed for commercial use and although we may decide to make it open source in the future it should be required to be open source.
So this clearly prohibits the use of any true copyleft licensed code.
But this got me wondering; are there any standard "open source" software licenses that allow commercial use, but do not allow redistribution of source?
I have intensionally used quotes around open source as I am aware that any licenses that fit this criteria cannot be compatible with the accepted OSI definition of open source.
Best Answer
There are no open-source licenses that do not allow the redistribution of source; that's a contradiction in terms. What there are, though, are non-viral open-source licenses that do not require the redistribution of source.
It sounds like what you're looking for is code with a license less "strong" than the GPL family. Have a look at the MPL (Mozilla Public License), which requires you to publish any changes you make to the MPL code itself but doesn't care about the rest of the project you use it in, even if it's a commercial project. Also, there are a number of extremely permissive open-source licenses such a the MIT license, the BSD license and the Zlib license that have minimal restrictions on what you can and can't do with the code in question.