4 ms·
This is a good intention, but unfortunately the way copyright law works, having the license be ill-defined means that nobody can really use it and be assured th
by frew 15y ago
This is a good intention, but unfortunately the way copyright law works, having the license be ill-defined means that nobody can really use it and be assured that they're above-board, particularly in something like an Apache or GNU open source project, or in a company environment.
Unfortunately, there's not really a good, widely used license that does what you want, mostly because you run into problems pretty quickly based on derivative works with what you want. Let's say somebody merges your email client with a browser - can they call that by a different name? Can they sell that?
Anyhow, I'd suggest looking at looking at the Apache or BSD licenses (if you want the broadest use) or the GPL (if you want to ensure that modifications to the code must be distributed with any binaries made from the code). Licenses are a bit of a pain, but you can just pick one of the common ones and it'll really help adoption.
- waseemsadiq 15y agoThanks thats helpfull, I'll add a licence tonight (probably BSD)
- joelthelion 15y agoNote that BSD does allow "some dude in china [to] slap another name on it and sell it".
- elehack 15y agoYes, but they have to give credit back. Better than nothing - people can follow the trail.
- cbr 15y agoI don't believe this is true. Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_licenses indicates nothing about an attribution requirement.
- Zev 15y ago* Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
- bryanlarsen 15y agoThey just have to bury the license in the documentation somewhere. Who reads documentation?
- mrschwabe 15y agoYeah but at least if he goes BSD then he too can use this code in a commercial product.
- a3_nm 15y agoHuh?! If he's the copyright holder, he can license the code under whatever license he chooses and use his code in a commercial product if he wishes.
- mrschwabe 15y agoOk I think I read you, but lets say his new commercial product was proprietary; the product costs $100. If the license for his original Inbox2 product was GPL, he would be required to distribute the source code on his new product right? So my point is, if its a BSD license he can integrate that code into the $100 product and not have to share the source code. I'm no software license expert so if I'm mistaken please correct me here.
- a3_nm 15y agoIANAL either, but I still think he'd be free to use his original code in a commercial product. By releasing under GPL, you give others a limited license to redistribute and modify the software subject to some conditions, but you keep all your rights, and you are free to distribute proprietary versions of the code. See https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ReleaseUnderGPLAndNF https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#ReleaseUnderGPLAnd...
- mst 15y agoYou might also find the Artistic License interesting - http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic_license_2_0 http://www.perlfoundation.org/artistic_license_2_0 It's an interesting balance between freedom and giving back - may be more suited to what you want or may not.