Software license

[Jorgen Sigvardsson]

I think the lock analogy is faulty. What you put in that article, or in the source code for that matter, is easily removed. Breaking an entry requires a little more than "select text, delete". The only reasonably safe way to protect your intellectual properties is to not publish them at all. The honest ones will keep the copyright notice in the source files. Those who can afford it, will also put your name in a credit dialog. Some of them will send you a line, telling you how much they appreciate your work. I do understand your sentiment though. If the license doesn't restrict the honest ones, and it gives you at least legal means for making dishonest ones pay, then there is no harm done. :)

-- This episode performed entirely by sock puppets

[Michael A Barnhart]

PJ Arends wrote:

What do other's here think?

Personally I think the Artistic is one of the better worded ones. Fairly open and still protects your ownership.

[Michael A Barnhart]

Joergen Sigvardsson wrote:

If I publish anything, I put little or no restrictions on the usage of the software.

Then please state that is your license. Many companies prohibit usage of code that the license is unknown. The risks you expose yourself to by not doing so is often just to great.

[Jorgen Sigvardsson]

I always do if I'm publishing "complete code". If it's just a demonstration of a certain technique, I generally don't put a license in the code, because that's not what I'm trying to communicate.

-- Broadcast simultaneously one year in the future

[Michael Dunn]

I put all my sample code in the public domain, because they are mostly tutorials and not money-making ideas. If I were writing a library or utility that would be updated and maintained over time, I'd go with something pretty permissive, for a few reasons 1) I want the code to benefit the most people 2) My personal choice is not to use a license that prevents commercial use 3) Having a license (and not making it PD) means I can keep my name attached to the code and the idea. Name recognition is important - from having my tutorials on CP, I've gotten one full-time job, one freelance job, and several interviews.

--Mike-- Visual C++ MVP :cool: LINKS~! Ericahist | PimpFish | CP SearchBar v3.0 | C++ Forum FAQ

[Marc Clifton]

PJ Arends wrote:

yet protects my ownership of the software

I'm probably dense, but what exactly does "ownership" mean when the source is freely available and modifiable? Also, regarding modifiable, I recently came across some code that my client was using that comes from my public domain repository. No biggy, but they had modified it without making comments about the modifications. They left my copyright notice in, which was nice of them, but the modifications were attrocious. Which left me feeling that anyone else looking at the modified code would think that I had written that crap. NOT the impression I want to leave. I ended up actually removing my license/copyright notice, since I didn't want any association with the modifications. Which made me think that I want a license that does two things: provides a hash code that you can use to authenticate the file against the original work and two, requires that any modifications be clearly documented. What are your thoughts regarding that? Marc

Thyme In The Country

People are just notoriously impossible. --DavidCrow
There's NO excuse for not commenting your code. -- John Simmons / outlaw programmer
People who say that they will refactor their code later to make it "good" don't understand refactoring, nor the art and craft of programming. -- Josh Smith

[Ed Poore]

Marc Clifton wrote:

provides a hash code that you can use to authenticate the file against the original work

That's a very good idea although what happens if someone changes the formatting to fit with specs?  Maybe a "parser" should be included to strip it into a common format. Hmm, maybe that's worth an article, now can I find the time...

[PJ Arends]

The license I want to use states that all modifications have to be noted as such, and anybody who redistributes code that they modified has to include either the original code, or note where the original code can be obtained. Crappy modifications is also the reason why the "AS-IS" disclaimer is also included. But my main question was is the artistic license a good one, or are there better ones out there, not 'to license or not to license'. Maybe I am worried about nothing, but as Mike said above, name recognition is important and I want to build on and protect that even though I just do this as a hobby.

---

You may be right
I may be crazy
-- Billy Joel --

Within you lies the power for good, use it!!!

[Member 96]

I only ever published free software once and it wasn't a pleasant experience, but the license basically was just the usual use at your own risk stuff. I wouldn't bother to be honest, the act of publishing it here is in essense giving it away to anyone for any purpose. You will have the credit just by publishing it if that's what your concerned about. If you want to make money off it some day then you're still free to do so. If you are thinking of a patentable idea and don't have a *lot* of money then don't even worry about it, anyone with the cash can patent the idea if it isn't already.

[Matt Gerrans]

I just wrote some code that does something like this for xml files; the hash doesn't include whitespace or comment tags, so as long as the real data isn't changed, the it will not break the hash. However, with code, changes to formatting to "fit with the specs" may amount to making the code look so bad you wouldn't want to be associated with it any more. :wtf: I've never seen a coding standard that didn't suck. So I think the hash should be broken by those kinds of changes too. ;)

Matt Gerrans

[Ed Poore]

Still be an interesing "project" to experiment with, although I suppose that the changes could incorporate naming standards (mine sometimes have to) which would also break it.  So what you really want is something to analyse the assembled code, ignoring naming. Hmm, now it's getting quite complex... :doh:

[Leonardo Pessoa]

I usually demand only to be quoted if my code is used in any project.

[]'s Harkos --- "Money isn't our god, integrity will free our soul." Cut Throat - Sepultura

[Fatbuddha 1]

Hy there! You should know that I am a student so not allready a programmer:). But did you think of the GPL (Gnu Public licens) or somethig like that? There your code ore libary, or what else is save, but others are allowed to change it, but are not allowed to sell it! Just have a read throw via google. Sorry for my bad english, I am from Austria :) See you

[PJ Arends]

Thanks for that, but the GPL is one of the first I looked at. Maybe I misread it but one of the restrictions it places on code is that the GPLed code can not be used in closed-source applications. I do not want to place that restriction on users of my code. I have decided to forgo the whole specific licensing thing and just put the usual "AS-IS" and "no warranty" disclaimers on it.

Fatbuddha 1 wrote:

Sorry for my bad english, I am from Austria

No worries, I understood you and that is the important thing. And besides, your english is way way better than my German:->

---

You may be right
I may be crazy
-- Billy Joel --

Within you lies the power for good, use it!!!

[Vivek Khurana]

You can use creative commons share alike attribution license or if you working on some utility/library, you can go with lgpl or bsd license too. All these licenses allow people to modify the code while giving credit to original creator. I personally like to release my code under GPL so that any modifications to the code have to be published again.

[tylermenezes]

The best thing you can do is to start with another license (like artistic) and then start modifying it to your liking. I personally use a generic-looking license with few loopholes for users, just because I hate licenses (ex. if a new major version comes out, feel free to distribute your license key). Really, you're probably not going to find a license that does *exactly* what you want. If you can, great! Otherwise, you'll have to decide between the closest fit and creating your own. Hope it Helps!

-Tyler Menezes "If a plane is on a convayer belt moving backwards at the same speed that it moves fowards, will it take off?"

[mfhobbs]

The worst is when someone puts GPL on it, that means I can't use it at work or on anything that I might one day want to use. Especially after I just read through the whole article! Even worse is GPL but 'contact me for commercial licensing' which is like: 'hey, I'm using codeproject to advertise my shareware'. LGPL has ambiguity problems. Most of the common licenses out there are just anonoying if you want to be honest and follow them to the letter. One day when i get around to adding code to codeproject it will be, if anything at all, just a comment in the source files like 'originally by me, distribute and modify freely, please leave this comment here, not liable' which is enough, legally sufficient, and understandable. Egotistical is 'just acknowledge me' which means like I am going to modify the Help/About for our 2 million line project to put X's name in there just because I used some code to help start a serialization routine?

[ITGFanatic]

How is the LGPL ambiguous? I thought you could use it for freely for commercial works - isn't that what the OP wants?

[mfhobbs]

That was most likely the intent, but it is as if it started sanely but then some insane people gave it a jolly good rogering. If you read the LGPL there are places which can be interpreted in multiple ways (if at all) some bad, expecially if you need to modify or extend the codebase. Enough so that the company I work for prohibits LGPL code use. From a lawyers point of view it is not the intrepretations you like that matter, its the interpretations you don't like!

[Daniel Benavides]

The creative commnos is very interesting too. Its referenced in projects like music, diffrent of software. Daniel Benavides Bogota, Colombia