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An Open Source License for Education?
Erno_Rubaiyat asks: "The educational foundation that I work for is preparing to release some software. We are committed to releasing it with an Open Source license, but are unsure what license to use. I was curious if anyone had considered or compared the Sakai license to the Creative Commons licenses? I like the Sakai license because it is so simple, but does it leave any obvious areas open for abuse? As a side note: we are including several packages that are licensed under the LGPL and the GPL. Are there any pitfalls that we should be aware of while licensing our 'original' work with a different license than these components?"
The GPL and BSD licenses are the most well understood licenses out there, and hence when someone else is considering using your code, they'll know right away what to expect.
Other less well-known licenses like Sakai should be left to organizations that have a legal department to make those decisions for them. The last thing you probably want is someone who might join in your software community and contribute useful changes back to you to be scared off by an unfamiliar license.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
I have a similar question that has been in the back of my head for a long time. Most F/OSS licenses only consider derived works to be improvements to your program or new programs which are released with some of your IP. I wonder if there was some license that was more restrictive, that also considered the output of modified programs as publishing a derived work. If I open source great simulation software, other researchers would be allowed to make substantial changes, generate output, and publish papers without contributing the code changes to the community. Academic integrity does limit how frequently this occurs. And many are happy to have your springboard that they do collaborate with you. Also, the journals often at least require them to document their procedure so that you can eventually figure out what they did & change it yourself. But is there any legally-binding & accepted license to protect you from when the system doesn't work?
What GPL licensed software are you using in your application? Depending on what GPL stuff you are using you might have to release your software under the GPL also.
Richard Stallman. Fear the Gnu!
stored on computers from birth to the grave
And by ``open source'' you mean ``GPL''. The GPL specifies that if you make a derivative work, it has to be released under the GPL. You don't get to modify the license of the derived work. I don't know all of the arguments for what exactly a derived work is.
Public domain: Use it as you like.
Remember that this gives you no rights. If people take your product, change the name, and charge $10 for it on eBay, tough.
What do you want to acheive is the question you should be answering.
Truer advice was never given.The parent is a troll.
> > We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.
>the FSF ends up being the ones defending violations in court. You give your software to them, and they use their power of copyright to defend it.
Incorrect, the "We" refers to the person licensing the software under the GPL.
Note how the copyright owner is explicitly named. Also note that Linux falls only under version 2 of the GPL. Many software projects state that they use the GPLv2 or any later version (there is no later version at the moment). There's nothing preventing the FSF from stating that the GPLv3 requires that only GPL software run on a computer where any GPL software runs, or that GPL software can only be used with the HURD. The HURD doesn't have to conquer Linux; it will start out with a full toolchain and many programs to go with it. Under the GPLv3, the FSF could deny the use of those programs under Linux. Suddently the big players in the OS market are Microsoft, the BSDs, and the HURD.
Wrong, the full text in question actually reads: "either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version."
Thus if the FSF were to publish a more restrictive GPL v3, Linux and everything else originally licensed under v2 would remain available under the terms of v2.
> The best thing to do is to roll your own license, using either the BSD or GPL as a basis (depending on which you prefer).
No, do not roll your own. This would only promote confusing. BSD and the GPL are accepted and well-recognized standards. Use them!
The unofficial
GPL like: You cannot use this software except with other open source software.
Please don't spread this FUD. I don't know whether you intended it this way or not, but it is what you said. The GPL doesn't restrict use at all.
LGPL like: You can use my software with anything but ANY modifications to my software must be published. Great for libraries.
Again, the same problem. It doesn't cover use. Also, you don't have to publish your modifications unless you distribute altered binaries.
What do you want to acheive is the question you should be answering.
This bit I agree with.
- Notice of any changes or modifications to the Original Work, including the date the changes were made.
- Any modifications of the Original Work must be distributed in such a manner as to avoid any confusion with the Original Work of the copyright holders.
- Title to copyright in the Original Work and any associated documentation will at all times remain with the copyright holders.
The last one might be a "duh", but the first two are probably unreasonable in an "open source" project.NO! NO! WRONG!
I'm sorry, but you're not doing anybody any favours here. You're making a huge, fundamental mistake that's just going to mislead people. This mistake is made over and over again and is the OSS community's biggest problem...
You see, none of these license say anything about how you can use the software. The GPL even explicitly states this. They are concerned solely with how you may redistribute changed copies of the software.
Here's the corrected version, to the best of my knowledge:
The corrolory to the above is: if you don't distribute your changes, the licenses are irrelevant, because their redistribution licenses, not user licenses. (This is why it's incorrect to use the GPL as an EULA.)
I don't know enough about the LGPL to comment; I believe that it's similar to the GPL, but has a much laxer definition of what constitutes a changed copy of the software.
Please, this is important. It's worth your while to try and get it right!
"You can license what people are allowed to do with your product."
This is far from legally clear. Copyright law only restricts certain things. The main one it restricts is copying and distributing copies. The reason that open source licences work is that in order to redistribute you need the authors permission. A copyright licence (such as (L)GPL or BSD) is a limited permission to do something which copyright law would otherwise prohibit.
On the other hand, you don't need the author's permission to run software and you probably don't need it to modify the software either. (Modifying on a computer necessarily involves copying but this form of copying may well not be regulated by copyright).
The non-free licences which purport to restrict lots of other things are End User Licence Agreements. Whether EULAs are ever valid is unclear. If they are valid it is because they form part of the contract of sale of the software: an EULA rests on contract law. In that sense it is not a licence at all.
In summary, under copyright law, you need a licence to release software where the copyright is owned by someone else but you don't need a licence to publish papers or give talks. Hence copyright licences can restrict releasing software but they can't directly restrict writing papers or giving talks.