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

ugh no more license please

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

That's it. Those are your two choices. These are well understood and are easy to read (the BSD is easy to read because it's short, and the GPL is easy to read because it was written to be easy to read, as well as legally sound). Everything else is just a waste of people's time.

You can also trademark the name of your program and add a note that says something like "you can use the GPL as long as you don't name your program FooBarProg2000(tm). Otherwise you can't redistribute at all." Adding simple exceptions to an existing license is a good way to customize them without having to write new ones from scratch.

What you DO NOT want to do is write YET ANOTHER half-assed free software license. The world is full of them, thanks. Every damn company (or rather, their lawyers) thinks they have to invent their own silly license. Stop that! Besides, a license is not something you just "throw together". It needs to be very carefully written to protect everybody's rights yet not violate the fundamental software freedoms we all know and love (like being able to *use* the software for any purpose).

What I'm saying is, if really need a license other than these two, you better have a DAMN GOOD REASON. And don't worry if the license "meet's people's needs". It's your software, not theirs. Pick the license that gives you the warmest most fuzzy happy feeling in your tummy (heh).

And ignore the pro/anti GPL zealots. To a vast majority of your users, the various free software licenses like BSD and GPL are indistinguishable, and indeed can be completely ignored unless they are *redistributing* the 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.

Re:ugh no more license please

[jhoger]

The one license option that CC has that I don't see much of on the software side is "no commercial use."

Personally I detest such licenses because almost anything can be commercial. If I make a shareware disk and charge a copying fee, well that's probably commercial even if I'm only covering costs according to my own bookkeeping. What if I just use the program in my business but I don't sell the program. If you want to share, share... if someone figures out how to make some money selling or using the program even though you couldn't, what harm is done? The GPL does a much better job since basically anyone can use GPLed software for whatever reason, the sticking point comes if you were to try to proprietize it by distributing an extended version w/out source. So no one can really "steal" your work.

But I find that many creators like the idea of "no commercial use" intuitively. They are fine with sharing their work, but they worry someone might try to make a profit off of it. and so they want to rule that out. If you have a "commercial" purpose, then you need to negotiate a license.

ISTR the MAME/MESS emulator has a ncu clause in its license.

-- John.

Choose One

[benjamindees]

The reason there is no Creative Commons license for software is that there would need to be two, basically equivalent to the BSD license and the GPL. Because software can be distributed in both easily-modifiable and not-easily-modifiable forms, any software license must take special notice of this.

What's wrong with Creative Commons itself?

[Gherald]

There is no reason you cannot use an ordinary Creative Commons license for software. For instance, I was just using Python-IRC

But most people prefer either the BSD or GPL for software since they are both hugely popular and compatible in one direction (BSD code can be freely re-licensed under the GPL, and intermixed with already GPLed code). Although I suppose the same might be true of BSD --> CC, there is already a HUGE amount of GPL software out there that you may as well be compatible with if at all possible.

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.

Adding exceptions

[cbr2702]

You can also trademark the name of your program and add a note that says something like "you can use the GPL as long as you don't name your program FooBarProg2000(tm). Otherwise you can't redistribute at all." Adding simple exceptions to an existing license is a good way to customize them without having to write new ones from scratch.

While you can add a note along with your code saying that FooBarProg2000 is your trademark, your exception is a bad idea. 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. Adding exceptions like this needs to be done carefully.

Also note that if you do manage to phrase your exception well, people can't mix it with other GPL code, so it's not all that useful.

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.

Don't

[dcapel]

Go look up the OSI listing. Theres a license for just about ANYTHING anyone would want.

Please do not make a new license for no good reason. It is just adding to the problem.

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?

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.

GPL doesn't fit everyone's needs

[turbidostato]

So what????

We are not talking here about everyone, but about YOU and YOUR software. It is TO YOU the one the license YOU choose should fit!

I think you focused the problem the wrong way.

You should think FIRST how do you want your software to be used and distributed, only THEN you should think about which license you should distribute your software with in order to achieve YOUR goals.

There is nothing as a "license mess". A license is only a written agreement between you and the one you share your software with, think about that. And then, you are lucky enough that you are not the first person in the world that wants to share his software with other people so you can take other's example. There are some license "templates" so widely used that they are even known by a generic name, like "the BSD" or "the GPL", that's all.

If one of those alreadly publicly known agreements fits you and your interests, pick it; if not, you will do as with any other 'a priori' agreement you would get into with other people: you would write it down, you would have it reviwed by an attorney and you'd stick with it.

And now, since you didn't tell us how do you want your software to be distributed, well, it's clear we can't help you about telling if there already is a commonly known "license template" you could use.

Whatever happened to Public Domain software?

[Quarters]

It was all the rage in the late '80s / early '90s.

Public domain

[rfisher]

Consider just making it public domain.

Most people who will bother looking at it will end up treating it that way, & who wants to waste time or hire lawyers to waste time looking for violations.

A license is just a lot of legal jargon that most people won't bother reading & that, if ever tested, will end up meaning something different that what you thought you meant when you wrote/chose it.

You'll get everything you'd get from a "creative commons" without the hassle.

The GPL or LGPL or even the BSD license perhaps become worthwhile when a project reaches some critical size, but they don't make sense for the vast majority of software written by one person & given away gratis.