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Selecting a Software Licence?
Posted by
Cliff
on Thu Apr 19, 2007 01:05 PM
from the an-important-decisions-in-a-coding-project dept.
from the an-important-decisions-in-a-coding-project dept.
indraneil asks: "I am a code monkey and have been so for close to 5 years now. I have recently been doing some self-started work that lets me design, implement and test stuff all by myself. A couple of people have liked my prototype and wanted to use it. I would be happy to let others use it, but I am unsure of what license to release it under. My CS course did not include any awareness of licensing and while I am aware of GPL, LGPL, Apache, BSD and Creative Commons licenses, I never got around to understanding them well enough to be able to form an opinion on what suits me best. I notice that SourceForge also expects me to specify my licensing choice, while I am setting up my project. If a person doesn't know about software licensing, where should they educate themselves about the ins and outs, so they can properly choose the license that is right for their project?"
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Wikipedia (Score:3, Informative)
Subjective (Score:2)
Some good points (Score:3, Informative)
This guy has some good points and it's worth a read. Title of the article is "Pick a License, Any License"
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000833.Short version: (Score:5, Informative)
BSD: Anyone can use your code, any way they want, as long as they mention your name.
GPL: Anyone can use your code, as long as they mention your name and allow others to use the code as you have let them use it.
LGPL: Same as GPL, but with some exceptions allowing others not to be bound to your licence if they don't actually touch your code in their project, but just use it.
Other licenses have variations on the above. In general I think most people should stick to one of those three, if for no other reason than to stop the confusion.
Pick the philosophy you like the best. That is the main point.
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BSD: Anyone can use your code, any way they want, as long as they mention your name.
"""
Actually, there is a clause in there that says that they can _not_ use your name. I think you are confusing the BSD with zlib.
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* Copyright (c) ,
* All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
* * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
* * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the followin
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You have it wrong - they can't *market* it with your name:
"""
Yes and no. You see, it says, "/endorse/ or promote products". And if a name appears on a website (or anywhere publicly) that can be construed as endorsement of the named developer/company.
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But mostly "yes."
The license also requires the copyright notice to be retained when distributing the software, which will include the name of the developer or company -- so yes, they are required to include your name.
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"
in the documentation and/>>>or other materials provided with the distribution.
"
So, it could be in a COPYING (or otherwise named) file with the distribution even if the user isn't told it was put on there computer. It just has to be
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http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html [gnu.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_license#UC_Berkel ey_advertising_clause [wikipedia.org]
There's a whole slew of variants of the BSD license, all colloquially referred to as "BSD"; as Wikipeida mentions, even the MIT license is easily confused with it. Depending on what variant of BSD you're using, it may or may not apply.
Now, I don't know if this is what the GP meant, but regardless if the advertising clause is present, you do have to "menti
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Many corporate shops I've worked with avoid GPL'd code, because they want the option of selling the product they make. They may never exercise that option, but they want it.
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Anyone can use your code, any way they want, and they don't have to mention anything?
I like that one.
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SQLite [sqlite.org] comes to mind.
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Do bear in mind of course that the software remains uncopyrightable; no one can re-copyright the code. At most only those portions of it they've changed would be new and copyrightable, without that having an effect on the unchanged portions or the original
Re:Short version: (Score:5, Insightful)
Funner version:
Public Domain: You want anyone to use your code free of restrictions. Nobody knows what you wear or what you eat. Your code is for simple binary trees and is published in University textbooks.
BSD: You want anyone to use your code, but not to blame you for it. You have medium hair and a T-shirt. Someone paid you less than minimum wage to write the code, and you use the money to eat at McDonalds. Your code is the TCP/IP protocol and is widely adopted and ubiqutous. Linux people think you're dead.
GPL: You wish everyone would use your code and share their modifications with the world. The only people who end up using it are Linux fanboys. You have long hair and a poncho. You spurn money and instead grow potatoes on your commune. Your code is the fourth non-completed conversion of an IBM PC game from the 1990s listed on sourceforge.
LGPL: You wish you could use the BSD licence, but are afraid the other people on the commune will throw potatoes at you.
Any other Licence: You either fail to realize that all other licences are basically the same as the BSD or GPL licence, or you contribute code to a project that has the same problem. You wear whatever everyone else wears and eat pasta because you heard it was "trendy." Your code calculates the phase of the moon on any past day using the Julian calendar because you can never remember the rules for converting from the Gregorian calendar.
Parent
Licensing 101 (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to open source it, use the GPL and offer a commercial license opt-out. If you use the BSD, no-one will pay.
Do not accept any contributions unless people are willing to transfer (c) to you, or you cannot relicense your work.
Do not use GPL libraries, only BSD-licensed ones, or you cannot relicense your work.
If you are a team or company that does not want to make money from the software, license it under the BSD or Apache license.
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LGPL libraries are also safe to use unless you make changes to them and don't want to share those changes.
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True. There's no guarantee, of course, that you will be able to make money off code, but it's always smart to retain that ability if you can.
Exactly right.
Who do you want to have freedom (Score:2)
From a developer's perspective, it all depends on who you want to have the most freedom with your code.
With GPL you give freedom to the community - anything using GPL code will always be GPL.
With BSD you give freedom to the developer - they can use your code almost any way they want. Closed source devs can modify and distribute binaries as much as they want without giving anything back to the community.
LGPL is like a mix of the two. The single developer can use thier own license so long as they only
GPL (Score:4, Informative)
There are many software licenses to choose one, and everyone should have a license that does exactly what they want it to do. You don't even have to pick a preexisting one; write your own with the help of a lawyer (if you need it).
However, it sounds to me that your intention is to share this software with others. If you want to share it with just those individuals you choose, use some different license and have them sign an nondisclosure agreement or something (ps I am not a lawyer). If your intention, however, is to share your software with the public at large and have the community benefit as a whole, then please use the GPL.
The reason why the GPL is important for this purpose is that it makes your community software stay in the community. Lots of commercial enterprises use the GPL for reasons like this; they have valuable assets they want to give away (in the from of source code), but they don't want their competitors using it to screw them over--they want the world to benefit, and they themselves might benefit from seeing improvements to their code. That's the GPL.
If you use the GPL, not only will you be sharing your hard work with others in a way that you deem appropriate, you are also encouraging them to share their work with you. Whoever uses your project or develops it will assume a mutually beneficial role with everyone else who does the same, including you.
You know how they say...if you love something, set it free? You'd want to take some steps to ensure that it at least STAYS free, right?
Official commentary on the GPL (Score:4, Informative)
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License Education (Score:5, Informative)
@OP:
If you want to educate yourself on what licenses would be appropriate for what
http://opensource.org/ [opensource.org]
has a TONNE of them.
The most common are the BSD, MIT, MPL, Apache, GPL and LGPL. That is according to sf.net. Please note that there are licenses that don't just protect you, but seriously effect how others can use your work. Please consider this as well when choosing your license.
To add in my personal opinion, I *really* don't like the GPL. What it does is FORCE other developers that use your work (whether dynamically linked to or not) to use the GPL as well. My personal opinion is that as a developer, I don't have the right to choose the license of someone else's work. There is of course the argument that the developer just shouldn't use your work. But, IMO, that is a non-argument as in some areas there really is only one or two real options.
At any rate, agree or disagree. That's just my opinion.
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The thing is that this isn't so much an argument as it is a point of view. If you think that it should be the right of the developer to place limits on how it's used, then it should be their right to choose whether their code can be integrated into closed-source software or not. Some people (like RMS) consider allowing their code to be used that way as morally wrong; others simply don't want to be contributing to the bottom l
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I respect the person, but not the view. Though, I wouldn't have a problem with the GPL if this clause was more along the lines of, "must use another OSI approved license" rather than "must use the GPL" i.e. there are less a**hole ways to keep things open source. To me, the GPL wreaks of arrogance.
But, I don't believe that most people that choose the GP
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I like to think of it in terms of slavery. Let's imagine you're the supreme leader of your own country. The people of the country are asking you, "Is Slavery allowed in this country?" You have a couple of choices
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Oh, btw, the GPL does _not_ force open software for those that are not playing by the rules. After all, if it's closed source, how are you know?
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I find it hilarious too for different reasons:
1) He is saying that he is looking some kind of "open" license. Open licenses are, well, open. What limits him in order to just *read* the license and form and opinion? It's everything there, on quite clear terms.
2) Apart from reading the licenses and choose the one that best fits their intentions, what else does him wait for? If he needs more than what he himself can get from r
License Ramifications (Score:3, Insightful)
There are really two big open source licenses, along with many that are similar or slight modifications thereof:
Otherwise, keep the license closed and license it specifically to other individuals and groups for $20 a head and provide it like a traditional, commercial product.
Public Domain? (Score:3, Insightful)
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I hereby place this code in the public domain.
Why more people don't use public domain... (Score:2)
There's no "hold harmless" clause.
The upshot of this is that you are potentially legally liable for consequences arising from someone taking and using the code. This includes, but is not limited to:
- implied or statutory warranties
- legal liability for direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or other damages
Putting something in the public domain unfortunately does not protect you from this by making it truly public property. Instead, you open yoursel
You have a few choices... (Score:3, Informative)
Use Public Domain if you don't care what people do with your code.
Use the MIT or X11 license if you want to give it as much chance as possible of being used by as many people as possible, without them being able to pass your code off as theirs.
The BSD (3-clause) license goes further by preventing other people from using you to endorse their products without your permission.
The LGPL ensures that the code will remain 'open' (i.e., distributing altered binaries means you have to distribute the matching sources). The LGPL specifically allows your code to be linked with, but not included in, non-LGPL projects. If your code isn't a library (or included in one), the LGPL isn't hugely different from the GPL, although releasing a program under the LGPL would mean somebody could turn it (or portions of it) into an LGPL-licensed library without any hassle.
The GPL is much the same as the LGPL, but doesn't contain any such provision for linking, so people linking with your code (if it's a library) had better make sure their do their homework first.
The GPL-compatible licenses (which includes PD, MIT/X11 and BSD) are so-called because they don't contain any restrictions beyond those included in the GPL. This means that your code, if released under a GPL-compatible license, can be legally be included in a GPL-licensed work: your code as you originally released it is still under the license you originally used, but the modifications and the derived work could be GPL'd.
Generally, the BSD license is a safe bet if you don't feel passionately about making sure that people who use your code must make their changes available to anybody who wants them, otherwise pick the LGPL or GPL depending on circumstance and requirements.
Avoid non-GPL-compatible licenses, especially home-grown ones: they usually end up doing nothing but preventing people who might want to use your code from doing so. Unless you're a huge multinational company, it's a sure-fire way to ensure that relatively few people will bother with what you've released (in which case, what was the point in releasing it?), and even then it'll stymie adoption.
I Like CDDL (Score:2)
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I looked into that one once, but it was full of holes...
Important: you can change (Score:3, Informative)
You can release it as GPL, then (if people convince you there are good reasons to relax the license somewhat) you can switch to LGPL, BSD, whatever.
You can also *sell it* to commercial customers who want to distribute it as a part of a closed source project. Yes, at the same time as you have a GPL version out, or you can stop distributing the GPL version and go pure closed sou
Re:Important: you can change (Score:4, Interesting)
Most will not mind doing this in order to get their code into the main tree and have you maintain it. It's a much less onerous requirement than a copyright assignment, but it's just as good for you.
Parent
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If/when you start accepting contributions/patches/etc. from other developers under the GPL, though, you have to get agreement from them to change anything (unless they sign over copyright for their code to you).
I.e., you need additional consent to distribute their GPL patch in your commercial package. That could potentially be signing over copyright to you, but more probably would be a separate agreement in which they give you permission.
Worth thinking about in advance of accepting code, anyway. Linux, for example, is probably staying GPLv2 forever [lwn.net] no matter *how* much Linux likes v3, because most of the code is GPLv2 only (some other code is "
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Er, wait, I think I missed something here.
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Re:Junior achievement. (Score:5, Insightful)
This AC post is right -- you are going about this backwards. Your first question should not be "what license do I use?", it should be "what do I want to happen to my code?" Sit down and decide whether you want to give away the source code or not, whether you want to allow others to modify the code, whether you want to require modifications to be released to the public, and anything else that you think is important.
Once you've done that, picking a license is pretty straightforward. People have already posted links to a bunch of different places that compare licenses. Unless your requirements are pretty unusual, you should be able to find a license that matches them.
Parent
GPL/GFDL/CC incompatibility (Score:2)
Once you've done that, picking a license is pretty straightforward.
Until you get into the issue of the proliferation of incompatible licenses. All the Creative Commons licenses are incompatible with any of the GNU licenses, and the GNU General Public License is incompatible with the GNU Free Documentation License. See Nathaniel Nerode's essay [rr.com]. A few cases follow:
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License for video games? (Score:2)
Then what free license is intended for works of authorship that include a significant amount of computer program and a significant amount of work other than computer program, such as educational software or video games?
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The zlib license does this. But any license that requires notifying the author before distributing copies for a fee (your criteria 2 and 3) would not be a free software license.