The Search for an Open Source License
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Every now and then I see a post from someone who needs help finding a license... so I guess its time I join the club. First, I would like to mention that Yes, I have spent a while searching on Google. I've looked through the lists on the Open Source Initiative, and the Free Software Foundation. Odds are I've overlooked something, but I haven't been able to find one I think is suitable. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm hoping that someone who is more familiar with commonly used Open Source Licenses can point me in the right direction. So what I'm looking for in a license should include some of the following: 1) Semi-Viral License (i.e. all modified versions is under the same license).... 2) But, you can combine it with non-licensed work. 3) The licensed source code must be free and publicly available (even if a derivative work is commercial and/or includes non-licensed proprietary work). Again, I'm just hoping that someone can give me a lead in the right direction. Any help that you guys can give is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jacob W. NOTE: I'm sorry if this is not the right area for this. I looked at the topics and subtopics in the other areas of the forum, and none of them seemed to fit.
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Every now and then I see a post from someone who needs help finding a license... so I guess its time I join the club. First, I would like to mention that Yes, I have spent a while searching on Google. I've looked through the lists on the Open Source Initiative, and the Free Software Foundation. Odds are I've overlooked something, but I haven't been able to find one I think is suitable. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm hoping that someone who is more familiar with commonly used Open Source Licenses can point me in the right direction. So what I'm looking for in a license should include some of the following: 1) Semi-Viral License (i.e. all modified versions is under the same license).... 2) But, you can combine it with non-licensed work. 3) The licensed source code must be free and publicly available (even if a derivative work is commercial and/or includes non-licensed proprietary work). Again, I'm just hoping that someone can give me a lead in the right direction. Any help that you guys can give is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jacob W. NOTE: I'm sorry if this is not the right area for this. I looked at the topics and subtopics in the other areas of the forum, and none of them seemed to fit.
I don't think you can combine 1 and 2. How do you define what a modifiation is, and what an addition is.
People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.
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I don't think you can combine 1 and 2. How do you define what a modifiation is, and what an addition is.
People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.
- The LGPL does it. It generally requires you to keep the licensed code separate from the non-licensed work. That was a bad word choice on my part. My apologies. 2) I'm not that picky at the moment as to what constitutes a modification/addition. Again, I'm hoping people who might know more about this can just point me in the right direction. Many of the more elaborate licenses include a list of definitions to further clarify the License.
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- The LGPL does it. It generally requires you to keep the licensed code separate from the non-licensed work. That was a bad word choice on my part. My apologies. 2) I'm not that picky at the moment as to what constitutes a modification/addition. Again, I'm hoping people who might know more about this can just point me in the right direction. Many of the more elaborate licenses include a list of definitions to further clarify the License.
seens like the LGPL is the license to you, but i do not know if i understood point 3 corectly, did you say that even if the code that uses your code isn't licensed under the same license, the author needs to provide his code? if so you want the GPL license. just to remember, the GPL license do let you sell your work, but requires you to provide source code for it. that's why enterprizes generally try to avoid it. if all you want is that all modifications to your work be at the same license, letting source code that is directly linked to yours but does not modify it be at any other license be it open or not, then you want LGPL well, that's about anything i know on this subject, and my message is writen with a english so broken that i think it won't be useful at all, but i hope you find your license soon.
I'm brazilian and english (well, human languages in general) aren't my best skill, so, sorry by my english. (if you want we can speak in C# or VB.Net =p)
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Every now and then I see a post from someone who needs help finding a license... so I guess its time I join the club. First, I would like to mention that Yes, I have spent a while searching on Google. I've looked through the lists on the Open Source Initiative, and the Free Software Foundation. Odds are I've overlooked something, but I haven't been able to find one I think is suitable. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm hoping that someone who is more familiar with commonly used Open Source Licenses can point me in the right direction. So what I'm looking for in a license should include some of the following: 1) Semi-Viral License (i.e. all modified versions is under the same license).... 2) But, you can combine it with non-licensed work. 3) The licensed source code must be free and publicly available (even if a derivative work is commercial and/or includes non-licensed proprietary work). Again, I'm just hoping that someone can give me a lead in the right direction. Any help that you guys can give is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jacob W. NOTE: I'm sorry if this is not the right area for this. I looked at the topics and subtopics in the other areas of the forum, and none of them seemed to fit.
MPL (?)
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Every now and then I see a post from someone who needs help finding a license... so I guess its time I join the club. First, I would like to mention that Yes, I have spent a while searching on Google. I've looked through the lists on the Open Source Initiative, and the Free Software Foundation. Odds are I've overlooked something, but I haven't been able to find one I think is suitable. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm hoping that someone who is more familiar with commonly used Open Source Licenses can point me in the right direction. So what I'm looking for in a license should include some of the following: 1) Semi-Viral License (i.e. all modified versions is under the same license).... 2) But, you can combine it with non-licensed work. 3) The licensed source code must be free and publicly available (even if a derivative work is commercial and/or includes non-licensed proprietary work). Again, I'm just hoping that someone can give me a lead in the right direction. Any help that you guys can give is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jacob W. NOTE: I'm sorry if this is not the right area for this. I looked at the topics and subtopics in the other areas of the forum, and none of them seemed to fit.
Personally I am a big proponent of MS-PL. This will let others create commercial and non-commercial works so long as you are given some credit and it is very easy to understand. However, I am a .NET programmer and my open source project is written in .NET. This might not be appropriate but I recommend you look it over.
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Every now and then I see a post from someone who needs help finding a license... so I guess its time I join the club. First, I would like to mention that Yes, I have spent a while searching on Google. I've looked through the lists on the Open Source Initiative, and the Free Software Foundation. Odds are I've overlooked something, but I haven't been able to find one I think is suitable. So that's where I'm at right now. I'm hoping that someone who is more familiar with commonly used Open Source Licenses can point me in the right direction. So what I'm looking for in a license should include some of the following: 1) Semi-Viral License (i.e. all modified versions is under the same license).... 2) But, you can combine it with non-licensed work. 3) The licensed source code must be free and publicly available (even if a derivative work is commercial and/or includes non-licensed proprietary work). Again, I'm just hoping that someone can give me a lead in the right direction. Any help that you guys can give is greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jacob W. NOTE: I'm sorry if this is not the right area for this. I looked at the topics and subtopics in the other areas of the forum, and none of them seemed to fit.
We can provide guidance, but to be sure you must consult with a lawyer, having said that, the Mozilla Public License seems to fit in your requirements, so you may want to take a look at it. Also i'll share my thoughts on this, if you're developing a library, please avoid GPL, i often find a nuisance that there is a magnific library that i want to use in a closed source (or commercial project) and i have to share all my code just for the privilege of using a library, even if i just use the vanilla unmodified version. Just my two cents.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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We can provide guidance, but to be sure you must consult with a lawyer, having said that, the Mozilla Public License seems to fit in your requirements, so you may want to take a look at it. Also i'll share my thoughts on this, if you're developing a library, please avoid GPL, i often find a nuisance that there is a magnific library that i want to use in a closed source (or commercial project) and i have to share all my code just for the privilege of using a library, even if i just use the vanilla unmodified version. Just my two cents.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
A good example of this is libreDWG. It is GPL3 but cannot be used by any of the projects in the CAD space because most (if not all) are GPL2 which is incompatible. For example, libreCAD is a fork of a project that is GPL2 and therefore cannot easily change licenses. This makes libreDWG essentially worthless and it is dying as a result. Also, just my two cents.
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A good example of this is libreDWG. It is GPL3 but cannot be used by any of the projects in the CAD space because most (if not all) are GPL2 which is incompatible. For example, libreCAD is a fork of a project that is GPL2 and therefore cannot easily change licenses. This makes libreDWG essentially worthless and it is dying as a result. Also, just my two cents.
I agree. That's one of the reasons I don't want to use the GPL. I have no problem if people use my code alongside their own proprietary code. What I do want is to make sure that if they find anyway to improve my code (i.e. modify it) that they are obligated to put it under the same license.