Creative Commons for Software?

rumint asks: "I am working on a software utility that I want to distribute freely. Unfortunately, there is a wide variety of nearly unintelligible software licenses (unless you are a lawyer). Of course there is the GPL, but I'm not sure it fits everyone's needs. Is there a Creative Commons equivalent for software licenses? If not, does some newly minted law school graduate want to put one together and contribute to humanity?"

Comments

Re:Adding exceptions

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Imagine you distribute your software with the following note: "you can distribute this software under the GPL provided you meet criteria FOO, otherwise you have no distribution rights". Person A meets criteria FOO, and distributes your software under the GPL to person B. Person B is now free not to meet criteia FOO, as they recieved the software under the GPL.

You messed up the recursion, that's why. If you inherit from the GPL you're supposed to call your derived license, not the base license, in the recursion.

You'd say, roughly (IANAL, someone please correct this): "This software is licensed under the terms of the GPL with the requirement that you meet FOO. Iff you comply with the GPL and FOO, you may redistribute this software with the same license."

(Not "...under the GPL."!)

Licenses

[mnmn]

There are 3 broad types of 'free software' licenses.

(1) You HAVE to release source code to the changes you make

(2) You dont really have to release source code.

(3) Software thats free but no source code provided.

Take your pick. If youre worried about further intricacies, just write your own.

There's GPL, LGPL, and BSD

[H4x0r Jim Duggan]

There's probably a good reason why the article doesn't say why the GPL is not suitable - namely that this hasn't been thought through.

As Torvalds says, the GPL is the simplist wording possible for a complex system. Keep in mind that Creative Commons licenses are not simple, they're just hidden behind a laymans explanation. Did the poster of the article realise that the 1-page summary of the Creative Commons licenses is not the legally binding part?

Re:What's wrong with Creative Commons itself?

[pokka]

Actually, there are some reasons you shouldn't just use Creative Commons for software. From the FAQ:

Can I use a creative commons license for software?

Creative Commons licenses are not intended to apply to software. They should not be used for software. We strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses available today. The licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed at the Open Source Initiative should be considered by you if you are licensing software or software documentation. Unlike our licenses -- which do not make mention of source or object code -- these existing licenses were designed specifically for use with software.

Re:ugh no more license please

[Scarblac]

Oh, come on now. Here's all you need to ask yourself:

* Do you want to let people distribute your software any way they want, including with less flexible terms than you distribute it? Pick the BSD license.

* Do you want to let people distribute your software any way they want, as * long as they grant others at least the same rights you granted them? Pick the GPL.

Nearly correct, but your second one should be "as long as they grant others the same rights over their entire program, not just the part they got from you".

And you need the third one - Do you want to let people distribute your software any way they want, possibly as part of a larger program, as long as they grant others at least the same rights you granted them on the parts you made? Pick the LGPL.

LGPL needs to be used more.

If you took one second to look at the CC site...

[charlie763]

Here's a link to a page on the GPL that you might understand http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/ and this http://creativecommons.org/license/ will help you choose a license. Look at the lower left of the page for easily read non-CC licenses.