Best Open Source License

George H Slaterpryce III

What is your preferred open source license? Why? I'm about to turn a project out to the Open source community and am trying to choose the best license schema. Just want to see what general opinions are.

Maximilien

What is your intent ? do you want to allow commercial use ? AFAIK, the GPL is quite restrictive in regards to commercial use. The CPOL[^] is a good start when dealing with source code.

Nihil obstat

George H Slaterpryce III

Pretty much "Do what you want" Free for private and commercial. Keep copyright info intact. But there are so many licenses. Just wanted to get peoples "feel"

thrakazog

Just put that very thing in a text document with the project:

George H. Slaterpryce III wrote:

Pretty much "Do what you want" Free for private and commercial. Keep copyright info intact.

Most licenses are just noise nobody reads anyway.

Play my game Gravity: Android[^], Windows Phone 7[^]

OriginalGriff

The CPOL is pretty much just that. If you follow the link Max gave you, the summary covers it pretty well, but doesn't mention the Restrictions it applies:* You agree not to remove any of the original copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices and associated disclaimers that may appear in the Source Code or Executable Files.

You agree not to advertise or in any way imply that this Work is a product of Your own.

The universe is composed of electrons, neutrons, protons and......morons. (ThePhantomUpvoter)

Mladen Jankovic

Maximilien wrote:

AFAIK, the GPL is quite restrictive in regards to commercial use.

Well, that depends on software. If you don't distribute binaries (i.e. you keep your software on your servers) then you don't have to distribute source code and your modifications.

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Mladen Jankovic

thrakazog wrote:

Most licenses are just noise nobody reads anyway.

And that's how you get in troubles :)

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ed welch

I like BSD, because it's very short. Only takes 5 min to read.

thrakazog

Well, if it comes down to it I'll just have to hope I get the front position in the Centipad. ;P

Play my game Gravity: Android[^], Windows Phone 7[^]

Matthew Faithfull

This is the one I'm currently using, short enough and does I think what you want, an open license to use for anything, maintains copyright and disclaims warranty. // Copyright Querysoft Limited 2013 // // Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person or organization // obtaining a copy of the software and accompanying documentation covered by // this license (the "Software") to use, reproduce, display, distribute, // execute, and transmit the Software, and to prepare derivative works of the // Software, and to permit third-parties to whom the Software is furnished to // do so, all subject to the following: // // The copyright notices in the Software and this entire statement, including // the above license grant, this restriction and the following disclaimer, // must be included in all copies of the Software, in whole or in part, and // all derivative works of the Software, unless such copies or derivative // works are solely in the form of machine-executable object code generated by // a source language processor. // // THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR // IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, // FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT // SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS OR ANYONE DISTRIBUTING THE SOFTWARE BE LIABLE // FOR ANY DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, // ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER // DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)

Lost User

George H. Slaterpryce III wrote:

What is your preferred open source license?

http://www.turbocash.nl/nononsense.html[^]

George H. Slaterpryce III wrote:

Why?

..because it's simple, I don't need a lawyer to understand it :)

Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]

Marc Clifton

George H. Slaterpryce III wrote:

What is your preferred open source license?

"It's free. Don't blame me if you screw it up." Marc

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CMullikin

Cuttlefish and asparagus, or vanilla paste? :-\

The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin

Lost User

// THIS IS THE LICENSE
// so everyone ignores it
// this text is useless.

Lost User

Thank you. It is refreshing to meet someone who doesn't believe their code is Scripture.

Mladen Jankovic

Ignorance is a bliss sometimes.

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H Brydon

I use the popular license that is associated with the distribution medium. For example, if I post on CodeProject, I use the CPOL. If elsewhere, I use one of their license choices. I am amused by and sympathetic to the Don't Be A Dick (DBAD)[^] license for my own distribution/web page, although I have to admit I haven't used it yet.

-- Harvey

Mladen Jankovic

H.Brydon wrote:

I am amused by and sympathetic to the Don't Be A Dick (DBAD)

Being 'funny' with license does no good to anyone. Ever heard about the law of unintended consequences? Case in point

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Joe Woodbury

I like the ZLib license. It's easy and straightforward and not pretentious.

Mark_Wallace

Don't forget an "If it ****s anything up, it's your fault for trusting it" clause.

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