Slashdot Mirror
How Many Open Source Licenses Do You Need?
jammag writes "Bruce Perens, who wrote the original licensing rules for Open Source software in 1997, notes that there are a sprawling 73 open source licenses currently in existence. But he identifies an essential four — well, actually just two — that developers, companies, and individuals need. In essence, he cuts through the morass and shows developers, in particular, how to protect their work. (And yes, he favors GPL3 over GPL2.) For his own coding work, he's fond of the 'sharing with rules' license, which stays true to the Open Source ethos of shared code yet also enables him to get paid by companies who use it in their commercial products."
Maybe more.
Hi Folks,
I happen to be at my desk again today, and can discuss this article, if any of you have questions or, more likely, comments :-)
If I write 30 responses, there will be a break. Slashdot locks me out for four hours after 30 postings from one IP.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
How many do we need? Why does that matter? If you don't like a particular license, don't use the software. Just because Perens is pedantic doesn't mean a thing. I'm sorry we can't tidy up the world for you, Bruce, and put everything in one of four arbitrary little boxes. Freedom means free, and that includes being free to define a license any Goddamn way you want.
Obviously you need a license that matches your values. If you think the same way as Stallman, who has communicated his principles in such places as the biography Free as in Freedom and the Free Software Song, you'll chose his license. If, on the other hand, matters of "hoarding" don't worry you at all, you'll chose another license. The quest for the one true open source license is an unreasonable expectation that human beings all think the same.
Not that I would oppose attempts to standardize and consolidate licensing for the sake of making it easier for people to know their rights, but why shouldn't developers/publishers be allowed to use whatever license they want, and make up their own if nothing else meets their needs?
I don't see the point of any attempt to artificially limit choice here.
IANAL but shouldn't it be fairly easy to construct a matrix of the various licenses and what rights/responsibilities are characteristic of each and how they compare to the other licenses?
At least that way any new licenses could be compared to the existing licenses to see if they were really needed or if they simply duplicated an existing one. Such as requiring that text block X be included in all copies ... but text block X differs from licenses A and B and C.
You need fewer license zea^Wadvocates.
Seriously, the amount of FUD spread about by certain licenses about certain others is staggering (not naming any names), to say nothing of tautological mottoes revolving around redefinitions of words, self-serving rationalizations, and more FUD.
You're going to get this mess any time something becomes a platform for political agendas, because Bruce's single "Shared with rules" license gets forked depending on the rules. GPL3 has the obvious rules, but under that heading would be the "Kinda BSD, except can't be used by the military of any country/companies that test on animals/people who eat meat/etc..."
Choice is good and the best licenses will grow to popularity unless tampered with by an outside force.
Hence the GPL is doing quite well. It does what most people want -- it allows for your work to stay free as it was intended.
If something better comes along, it may be used. Sort of like evolution -- survival of the best fit.
No. That doesn't show the differences between the licenses. Look at how many of them have the same answers in the same columns ... yet have different restrictions if you read the licenses.
I'm impressed how Perens feels he can just brush away all disagreement with the GPL v3 because "Linus had a personal issue with it, some I'm ignoring that".
Joining the GPL v3 steamroller isn't going to make developers any more willing to use it.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
How did he 'write the rules' in 1997 when GNU & FSF long predated this?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
As the original author of anything that is subject to Copyright you are free to license the same piece of work (even if it is undergoing continuous change by you) under several licenses - and it is also available under the basic grounds of Copyright in the country of origin too.
This means that I can write and sell commercial software - and also license the same software under the GPL (or Creative Commons for text/images, etc.)
But those who don't subscribe to the GPL/CC can still use Fair Use to talk about my code or other work - even down to publishing "abstracts" of it.
The major concern is not MY code - it is what is contributed by others to my (GPL or other license) code - and what I can do with it.
A license that states "you can make changes but I own all such changes that you submit to me and may sell them along with my code" is completely different from GPL.
So is a license that states "you can make changes but you license them to me such that I can sell them along with my code even without attribution to you"
Using license terms to allow an "open source" following to build your basic software's reputation so you can then sell your "premium" version of it is a growing method of doing business.
On the other hand we've seen businesses that have recognized that the open source version has ended up with better following and better (or at least more diverse) options - and ended up opening up their premium system too - and moving to the pure service/maintenance/extension business model.
There's room for it all - the market will tell which works best for each instance.
Been there, done that, paid for the T-shirt
and didn't get it
The characterization of BSD, Apache, etc. as "gift" licenses just display Perens' bias.
These are licenses that allow you to work both in proprietary projects and open source projects at the same time.
The word "gift" implies the person does not have a job and is doing it for free when, in reality, the developer might be working for a company that would only use business-friendly licenses.
The real distinctions are: are you going to work for a project else who will demand that you give away your copyright and who will keep their right to fork it into a proprietary project. If the answer is yes, then, please do it. Just don't complain when you see your work being bundled into a proprietary fork while you have to keep convincing everyone that they must use GPL/viral licenses (which is easy to do if you're into the business of selling servers, like IBM, and you want to bundle Linux "for free" - which, simply put, is IBM's strategy against Sun Microsystems, obviously).
The GPL license, due to copyright laws, allows this dual-licensing, which basically means unequal rights for developers (those who hold the copyright and, thus, can fork it into a proprietary license, while demanding that everyone else stick to the GPL version).
If you want developers to have equal rights, i.e., they can do *whatever* I want (i.e., "freedom"), then don't chose the GPL, chose a license such as the BSD license.
Open source code is not a material resource; it is an information resource and cannot be "stolen" (as GPL zealots with faulty logic would have it) but only "copied."
Learn to recognize Linux PR when you see it.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
GPL advocates generally it is a good, and necessary, freedom for people to be able to do things like recompile their software (e.g. a Linux kernel) modifying part of it, and perhaps distribute their modifications.
Yet it is apparently a bad thing for people to modify their Open Source software licenses, because of the number of different combinations which arise as a result. Indeed, the FSF copyright the text of their license, and do not allow modified versions to be distributed. The article asserts they were smart to do this.
Why is it "smart" to copyright text, but not smart (restrictive, proprietary, evil etc.) to copyright source code? Is the complexity of a software license really so much greater than the complexity of the Linux kernel?
As part of my continuing attempts to diversify my trolling, and provide increased customer satisfaction, I would like to introduce the brand-new 'Last post'!
From the makers of 'First post' and 'p1st fr0st'; Last post is the result of over two years R&D at Anonymous Labs plc. We took your feedback from First post* and produced what we believe is the next generation in Slashdot trolling.
You moderated, we listened!
Look out for amusing anagrams of Last post in the near-future. Our scientists are working tirelessly, right now, for your benefit. Not only that, but Anonymous Slashdot trolls are all available under a Creative Commons Spam-a-like permissive license! So you're Free to take the fruits of our considerable labour, and share them with other appreciative audiences around the Web.
Say it with me now:
Note: anyone posting beyond this point will be kidnapped by snakes and thrown into a pit of Nazis.
* Mostly: -1 Offtopic and -1 Troll.
Has anybody ever proven this?
ie. has it ever been proven that attaching a 'must share' clause to a license (ie. GPL vs BSD) actually results in more people sharing code.
I am inclined to think and believe, based on experience, that it does not. Those who share are likely to share regardless of license, ditto to those who take your code and improve it with no intention of sharing.
Just how much does 'sharing' contribute to open source anyway, considering that all the top projects are tightly controlled by a small number of lead developers who hold the keys to commitments and in accepting patches. Code being shared will likely just go unnoticed anyway.
So, after 10 years, has anyone proven that the GPL works?
In addition to software licenses, we have licenses like GFDL and CC-BY-SA, which are intended for books, software manuals, etc. That whole situation is a total botch. The GFDL (without any of the added options like invariant sections, etc.) is essentially philosophically and legally equivalent to CC-BY-SA. The fact that we have two licenses for a single purpose is not a good thing. For instance, I've written some physics textbooks that are copylefted. Sometimes I've taken diagrams and photos I did for the books and added them to WP articles. Other times I've taken photos from WP and put them in my books. What makes this all unnecessarily difficult is that although WP uses GFDL (for historical reasons, because CC postdates WP), various other people use CC-BY-SA. We all want to share, but the licensing creates problems. I've ended up dual-licensing my books for this reason, and as far as I can tell, this allows me to bring in either CC-BY-SA or GFDL materials. On the other hand, if other people want to use a photo from my book, they have to look in the photo credits section at the back, and they may find that it's a photo I got from someone else under GFDL, but their project is CC-BY-SA, so they can't use it. They might be able to switch their own project to a similar dual-license scheme to get around this, but that might not be possible; e.g., look at the Linux kernel, which could never change licenses even if Linus wanted it to, because there are too many copyright holders.
One thing I would suggest to anyone uploading pictures to WP or Wikimedia Commons is that you use their recommended licensing option, which is now dual GFDL/CC-BY-SA.
Another real problem in this area is the tendency of people to pick CC-BY-NC, with a noncommercial clause. I see tons of people doing this even for materials that have zero commercial value. For example, there's an innovative physics textbook from the 1970's that went out of print. Cool book, but it was just a little too controversial; the big sellers tend to be the plain vanilla ones that can make everyone in a university department happy enough to sign off on adopting it. It's been out of print for 30 years, and the rights reverted to the author. He scanned it and put it up on his web site as a PDF. I contacted him, told him how much I liked the book, and suggested that he put it under a CC license, because, e.g., otherwise it would have to disappear from the world on the day he got tired of paying a webhosting bill. He decided to do that, which is cool, but he picked CC-BY-NC, which means the book can never be used as the basis for further collaborative work. I think people have this emotional feeling that they don't want to risk having their work exploited commercially by someone else, because that would be a ripoff. The problem is that they don't seem to do a good job of realistically assessing the chances that that would happen. Although the guy I'm referring to is a published author, there are many other people who just don't have a realistic idea of what it's like to try to make a significant amount of money by writing. There are just too many people out there who think they have the next bestseller on their hands.
Find free books.
Please be specific. How does the GPL not satisfy the OSI standard for non-discrimination. If you're going to throw around a random inflammatory accusation as an anonymous coward you should at least back it up with facts or reasoning.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
This is a problem. It seems that every attorney has their own fear, which they insist on writing into their own license that you must use.
But IMO the largest part of the problem is that few companies are effective at managing their own attorneys. Many technical managers feel that law is a black art and that they can only manage what they understand. Top managers with this problem tend to structure the company so that middle managers can't push back on Legal, and must do whatever Legal says. And thus, company attorneys generally get their way even on small points. A general counsel who sits on the board is even able to do this to the CEO, if the other board members aren't good at managing attorneys.
If it is imposed on the attorney that using an OSI-accepted license is important, the attorney can probably do a reality-check on their own fear. The fact that this doesn't happen is more an issue of management effectiveness than anything else.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
You only need one license.. The WTFPL
I have actually RTFA, but it still seems to me a little simplified.
E.g., you yourself give the example of AFFERO GPL as a case where an extra tweak was considered needed because of the software-as-a-service phenomenon. That both are "sharing with rules" just glosses over a distinction that obviously someone thought relevant to their values. One camp basically says "I only want your sources if you distribute the software in binary form", while the other basically says, "I also want them if you run them on your servers." Over-simplified, but you get the idea.
That's just the kind of fine points that make the tastes and values of person X differ from those of person Y or from those of company Z. Even if they both can be lumped under the same "sharing with rules" pot, there's always some aspect or detail that two different people see in two different ways. Different details or distinctions can lead someone to really needing yet another license.
E.g., the LGPL you mention yourself is basically a case of wanting something in between "gift" and "sharing with rules". I don't think it's the only possible point between the two. Different people may well feel that a different point in that interval is the best for them.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Consider the "branding" issue: fundamentally what does "open source" tell you about the software? As someone unfamiliar with coding and all these licences, I have no idea what "open source" is supposed to mean beyond the source code being viewable for inspection. I would ask forgiveness for my ignorance, but with 73 incompatible licences I can't imagine it can mean much more than that.
I think that while people are (and should be) free to use whatever licence they wish, there should really only be a few which are encouraged, endorsed and in widespread use. Otherwise it does not carry the advantages from being a standard.
Remember that Richard is against software being copyrighted
Not quite exactly. What RMS opposes is the practice of not giving people freedom with respect to the software they run.
To your credit, it's true that copyright as it's typically applied is part of what RMS is against---but I suspect that he won't be happy if copyright was abolished tomorrow: we could all share our binary copies of Windows, but without source code freedoms 1 and 3 in effect don't exist. The freedoms are the crucial part (to him).
Whether the collective you agrees or not is up to you to decide; I'm just trying to present Richard's opinions and observations, as I understand them.
I frequently hear them characterized that way, and I talk mostly to Windows-using academics who're discussing how to release their code, and could hardly care less about Linux or the Free Software Foundation.
The general viewpoint of options that get bandied about is something like:
1. "Research-only" or "non-commercial-use" license: minimal release that will ensure researchers who want it can get it, while retaining all commercial rights that default copyright gives.
2. Copyleft licensing: release that allows code to be used commercially or non-commercially, but only in free-software projects using the same copyleft license.
3. Permissive licensing: release that allows code to be used for any purpose, provided the copyright notice is maintained.
The first is is probably, unfortunately, the most common release mode for research code (though this is changing), since it feels like "giving away" the least as far as potential commercial exploitation goes. The second is usually an easier sell than the third, because it at least guarantees that Microsoft can't put your algorithm into the next version of Excel without paying you, which is the main thing people who get cold feet about releases are worried about (that they're giving away a potential source of livelihood for free).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I seem to recall that RMS, in one of his talks, highlights an example where a company uses libreadline in a program, and when finding out that libreadline is released under the GPL (I think through the FSF pointing it out), the company decides to release their product under the GPL.
I know, [citation needed]. I apologize that I can't give it. The jury will disregard this post ;-)
Abraham Lincoln says four score plus seven. It is President's Day afterall...
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
The clearest examples, of course, are the "hardball" ones: code releases where the person in question did not want to release the code for their derived version, but was forced to do so as part of the settlement of a GPL-violation lawsuit. For example, Monsoon Media released their source code only after being sued by BusyBox developers. It seems pretty clear that had BusyBox not been copyleft-licensed, Monsoon Media wouldn't have released their code.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I once too the time to put the core programs that make up a basic Linux distro into a spreadsheet, making notes on the programming language they used, file size and license. I used Linux From Scratch, so I could get an idea of a "core" working system, as opposed to thousands of packages. I think I narrowed it down to just over 60 packages to provide the basics. It taught me a couple of things.
1. Richard Stallman is right, the correct term is GNU/Linux. I was amazed at the percentage of packages in the core OS -- not applications -- that were from the GNU project. It was something like 75% or so.
2. C is by far an away the most dominant programming language. (Yeah, I know it should have been obvious. Duh!)
3. There are too many licenses. Off the top of my head I bumped into: GPL2, GPL3, BSD-2, BSD-3, MIT, Artistic, OpenSSL's "thou must advertise us" variation, Vi's Charityware, and at least one public domain.
Have you looked at it from this perspective? And would you consider approaching some of the existing projects with changing their license to one of your four?
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
As an example of that viewpoint, this article (PDF), from a 2007 volume of the Journal of Machine Learning Research characterizes open-source license choices from the perspective of scientists releasing their software as follows:
1. "A developer who wants to give away the source code in exchange for proper credit for derivative works, even closed-source ones, could choose the BSD license."
2. "A developer who wants to give away the source code, is comfortable with his source being incorporated into a closed-source product but still wants to receive bug-fixes and changes that are necessary to his source when integrating the code could choose the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)."
3. "A developer who wants to give away the source code and make sure that his program stays open source, that is, any extension (or integration) will require both the original and the derived code to be released as open source, could choose the GNU General Public License (GPL)."
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The Apache-style license is a gift because a company can use the work without any quid pro quo. Obviously, much Open Source is written as part of someone's employment, whether it is BSD or GPL licensed.
Dual licensing does give some special rights to one party. In general, this one party is the main contributor, and their business purpose doesn't work without dual licensing - because they won't have a revenue stream that supports their creation of the software. A license that does not fulfill that purpose is hardly more "business friendly" than one that does.
This is not a matter of philosophy, just business sense.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce missed the one option I think is the most important: public domain. It's not a license and so captures the "giftiness" of the gift licenses better than any of them.
I don't see how you can draw your conclusion that "Those who have no intention of releasing code are not going to regardless of what the license says."
There are dozens of examples, one of which I linked, of them doing precisely that: people who had no intention of releasing code, like Monsoon, being forced to do so by the license.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Wow. Way to make a shitty joke even shittier.
This reminds me of a musician joke:
q: How many guitars does a guitarist need?
a: Just one more.
There is always going to be someone that thinks they need something just a little bit different to suit their particular needs. In reality the number of open source licenses could be dramatically reduced, but the human condition makes us each think we are unique and have special needs and requirements for our unique project.
Are there too many open source licenses? Yeah. It's way to complicated for the end user. Will this ever change? Most likely not.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
It could be this question!
"Use cases are fairy tales..." I. S. 2005
Who cares what Perens thinks anymore? He's just not relevant anymore.
Why the concern with protection on something you want other people to use, something you want to be well tested, perhaps a standard for interoperability? I don't get it. Any protection that prevents the code from being used in any situation will mean it won't be as well tested, it won't have as many opportunities for improvement, and it won't be used as a basis for interoperability. If you don't want those things, why not keep the code to yourself instead of trying to control everyone else with restrictions?
It appears slashcode has moved to http://github.com/scc/slash/tree/master
Businesses and lawyers are concerned about CYA maneuvers. You are concerned about efficiency.
No one got fired because there were too many licenses.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I was just reading up on copyright law, and it turns out that the original copyright law was 14 years, plus a possible (single) 14-year renewal by the author, if still alive -- which I believe they had to actively secure for themselves.
How about a license which says "This work passes into the public domain in 28 years," or better, "This work passes into the public domain in n years."
For anyone on Slashdot who has the legal expertise, I really don't know how to code that into law, or what pitfalls I should expect after that time. But I would like to at least dual-license some of my stuff under that, and it would be nice to know which of the existing licenses are compatible.
I think software copyright should be something like 15 years, and software patents more like 5 years. Honestly, in software, if you haven't made a profit off a program in 15 years, you're not going to, and if you haven't made a profit from a patent in 5 years, all that's left is patent-trolling.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
GPL currently wins the popularity contest. But it seems to me that incompatibility is too big a cost if the benefit is just the popularity contest.
That depends on where you live and what you consider differences in licensing. I would think the "we haven't even thought about that" and "if you are willing to pay, we can talk about what you want" license families are both larger than GPL.
Well, that depends on how computers I need to install it on, doesn't it?
I really expect that no one will get inspiration from Stallman. He is just a radical geek without any idea of how work the real world.
I agree that a short list is important. I'd add "GPL version 2 or greater", "LGPL version 2 or greater", the BSD-new, and the MIT licenses to the short list of "reasonable licenses"; that list is still really short. I would recommend using the MIT license instead of the Apache 2.0 license; one problem with the Apache 2.0 license is that it's not compatible with the GPLv2 (though it is compatible with GPLv2 and GPL "version 2 or later"). In contrast, the BSD and MIT licenses are compatible with GPLv2.
It's particularly important to choose a license that's compatible with the GPL. The GPL is the most popular license, by far, so if every component is compatible with the GPL (of a specific version), then you can combine them all. I go into this in Make Your Open Source Software GPL-Compatible. Or Else.
You can see how that list of licenses (above) is compatible by examining my article, "The Free-Libre / Open Source Software (FLOSS) License Slide". Bruce is right, life becomes too complicated by trying to handle 70+ licenses. A short list, which are mutually compatible (or nearly so), is far more reasonable.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
Bruce's article discusses license proliferation from the perspective of how-do-I; I'd like to confront those who use it to say why-should-I.
I used to work for a company whose lawyers argued that we must avoid Free Software because there were too many licenses to understand. Really.
Okay, so hundreds or thousands of Free Software products tend to use one of a few dozen licenses. We get that.
When you use proprietary software, every software product is governed by its own unique license. This is an improvement?
License proliferation is a totally bogus reason not to use Free Software.
Epilogue: My former employer has since seen the light. The legal team (whole executive team, actually) was sacked, and the company now uses and writes software under the GPL.
Good job making a shitty joke even shittier.
I disagree with this statement: "Understanding licenses isn't really an Open Source issue." Even for someone who understands the basic idea of the GPL, understanding the finer details of how the licence is intended to achieve this may be difficult, IMHO. For someone who doesn't understand the basic idea (and outside the world of GNU/Linux this is the norm), the GPL is undoubtedly even more confusing.
IMHO, the GPL would be easier to understand if it was arranged to list the rights it allows, and all the responsibilities associated with each right, something like as follows (numbers in braces refer to corresponding sections in the GPLv3):
Preamble
0. Definitions. [0, 1]
1. Receiving a Licence.
1.1. License grant is given upon receiving the Program. [10p0s0, 2p0s0, 11p0-2&7, 3p0]
a. License acceptance is implied by modifying or propagating. [9]
b. No warranty is provided, unless in writing for a fee. [15, 16, 17]
c. Additional liability disclaimers may apply. [7a]
d. Additional publicity restrictions may apply. [7d]
e. License adherence is not excused by other obligations. [12]
f. License termination may result from license breach. [8]
1.2. Additional permissions may apply. [7p0, 7p9s0-1, 14]
2. Using the Program.
2.1 Using the unmodified Program and fair use are unlimited. [2p0s1-3]
2.2 Making and using covered works is permitted. [2p1, 2p2s0]
3. Conveying Source.
3.1. Conveying verbatim copies of source is permitted. [4p0s0, 4p1]
a. Licensing restrictions may not be imposed. [10p0s1&p2, 2p2s1]
b. Patents, if they protect you, must protect everyone. [11p3-6]
c. Technical measures may not be enforced. [3p1]
d. Notices must be retained and made conspicuous. [4p0s0]
e. Additional names and marks terms may apply. [7e]
f. Additional liability indemnification terms may apply. [7f]
g. Transfer of control requires transfer of rights. [10p1]
3.2. Conveying modified source versions is permitted. [5p0s0 parts]
a. Above terms of Section 3.1 apply. [5p0s0 part]
b. Licensing must be available under this License. [5c, 7p1-2, 7p9s2]
c. Notices must be included and prominent. [5abd, 7p10-11]
d. Additional notices terms may apply. [7bc]
4. Conveying non-source forms is permitted. [6p0s0 part]
a. Above terms of Sections 3.1 and 3.2 apply. [6p0s0 part]
b. Source code must be made available. [6p0s0 part, 6p1-6, 6p11]
c. Installation information is required for User Products. [6p7-10]
5. Conveying Non-GPL Works.
5.1. Conveying linked Affero GPL works is permitted. [13]
5.2. Conveying aggregates is permitted. [5p5]
How to Apply this License
the BSD license is the ideal license for openssh, since the goal is maximum use of the code. the code already works and does not need much improvement. ssh was designed to kill the clear text rsh/rcp/rlogin/telnet protocols which made the internet a much less safe place. now openssh is a de-facto standard. it can be put in proprietary products or modified however developers see fit. but the protocol remains and more people use it b/c it has a very simple (2 clause) license. nobody has to be afraid of using however they like. if it were gpl, it would be incorporated into fewer other products and it would be more difficult to achieve the goal that everyone use ssh instead of crappy, insecure r-protocols.
seems like gpl is for maximum openness of software where it is used; bsd is for maximum adoption of software.
i think the openbsd/openssh guys don't view themselves as "unpaid labor" -- rather they are developing tools to make the internet (and various sub-networks) a safer place for all users. they are non-commercial so they don't have to worry about "competitors"--they just want maximum adoption of their high-quality code and of their excellent security practices.
I disagree with this statement: "Understanding licenses isn't really an Open Source issue." .. For someone who doesn't understand the basic idea .. the GPL is undoubtedly even more confusing.
Only if you're a lawyer. It seams clear enough to me, I get 'a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work', without responsibility for 'enforcing compliance by third parties with this License'
"The GPL, however, is a true copyright license: a unilateral permission, in which no obligations are reciprocally required by the licensor. Copyright holders of computer programs are given, by the Copyright Act, exclusive right to copy, modify and redistribute their programs. The GPL, reduced to its essence, says:
'You may copy, modify and redistribute this software, whether modified or unmodified, freely. But if you redistribute it, in modified or unmodified form, your permission extends only to distribution under the terms of this license. If you violate the terms of this license, all permission is withdrawn.'"
For me it's the CC BY-NC-SA. Simple and straight forward, yet allows me to retain copyright, but is completely free for users.
While some licences will limit the options available to a develeper, stop being so selfish and for once think about the users!
Hi Bruce,
aren't the OpenBSD guys at odds with the Apache 2.0 license?
AFAIK, that's the reason they still provide only Apache 1.3.x.
Wouldn't be better to recommend the ISC license?
Thanks for your insight.
Windows users:
Internet Explorer is obsolete. Please upgrade to Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
All licenses do not say the same thing about how to treat people. Free software licenses allow sharing and modification which is permission to build community. Proprietary licenses forbid these things. The politics of all licenses exist, but you're using the word "politics" to describe something you don't like. The practical problems of non-copylefted free software licenses are also well known. The danger isn't in seeing non-copylefted free software vanish ("BSD/MIT licensed code is in danger of being locked up, never to be seen again, regardless of the wishes of the original coder"), that's a misstatement of the argument. The danger for the user is that they will end up using a proprietary variant of a non-copylefted free software program losing their software freedom. Improvements to the non-free variant do not return to the free variant, so one ends up contributing to one's own competition. The free variant still exists but that variant is less capable and thus less desirable to those who don't value their freedom (which is why we need to teach people to value software freedom for its own sake). Non-free variants might also be better advertised.
Digital Citizen