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That is not what I mean. You can put things in a license that are not legally enforceable. You could add: "All users must sacrifice their first born child to

That is not what I mean. You can put things in a license that are not legally enforceable. You could add: "All users must sacrifice their first born child to the developer". No court in the world would enforce that license. This is a contrived example, but what is enforceable will vary in different legal jurisdictions. Things are not black and white, which is why it is incredibly common for their to be lawsuits disputing the meaning of validity of a license. This is why it is best to consult a lawyer before changing a license. It is important to rename a modified license to avoid confusion. If you tell someone your software is MIT licensed, but you modify the license, they might inadvertently break the terms because they are familiar with the MIT license, not your modified license. There are a lot of open source licenses out their, I strongly suggest finding that suits you best. Using your own licence might hinder adoption. There some people that don't consider a license open source in unless it is OSI approved. I don't agree, but it is a good idea to stick with OSI approved licenses.

hoofhearted 3y ago
Oh, I believe I understand what you are saying now. Existing open source products on the market within the space I am working to evolve have basic MIT licenses that they have ammended with their own terms. Thank you for your input! I am going to go research OSI more in depth. I do actually want to open myself up to much larger Fortune 100 and government type clients who have stringent polices on what open-source projects they can use internally, and how they can host them. I've heard some rumors that tools like Drupal are still the approved standard for content creation within some organizations. Kind of like the COBOL of blogging.
hoofhearted 3y ago
Check out this license for example: https://github.com/tinacms/tinacms/blob/main/LICENSE https://github.com/tinacms/tinacms/blob/main/LICENSE It's an Apache 2.0 license, but with addendums. Would it be reasonable to say that I could fork their repo for own purposes, and argue in court that I was only familar with Apache 2.0, and not their modified terms?
- themerone 3y ago
  Not a lawyer, but I really think that depends on how you communicate the license. If the website, GitHub page, and documentation say: Released under the Apache 2.0 license, with no mentions of addendums, I think you would have a strong case. I suggest changing the name, to avoid any confusion, do not consider it to be legal advice.
  - hoofhearted 3y ago
    Thank you for you thoughts! I greatly appreciate them! I understand 100% now what you mean, and as a non lawyer but technical person, I would easily argue the points above if did ever find myself in that battle : ) I've also learned in my couple years of being an innovater that patents, copyrights, trademarks, and licenses are only as good as the legal counsel you can afford to retain to fight your battles.

hoofhearted 3y ago

Oh, I believe I understand what you are saying now. Existing open source products on the market within the space I am working to evolve have basic MIT licenses that they have ammended with their own terms. Thank you for your input! I am going to go research OSI more in depth. I do actually want to open myself up to much larger Fortune 100 and government type clients who have stringent polices on what open-source projects they can use internally, and how they can host them. I've heard some rumors that tools like Drupal are still the approved standard for content creation within some organizations. Kind of like the COBOL of blogging.

hoofhearted 3y ago

Check out this license for example: https://github.com/tinacms/tinacms/blob/main/LICENSE https://github.com/tinacms/tinacms/blob/main/LICENSE It's an Apache 2.0 license, but with addendums. Would it be reasonable to say that I could fork their repo for own purposes, and argue in court that I was only familar with Apache 2.0, and not their modified terms?

themerone 3y ago
Not a lawyer, but I really think that depends on how you communicate the license. If the website, GitHub page, and documentation say: Released under the Apache 2.0 license, with no mentions of addendums, I think you would have a strong case. I suggest changing the name, to avoid any confusion, do not consider it to be legal advice.
- hoofhearted 3y ago
  Thank you for you thoughts! I greatly appreciate them! I understand 100% now what you mean, and as a non lawyer but technical person, I would easily argue the points above if did ever find myself in that battle : ) I've also learned in my couple years of being an innovater that patents, copyrights, trademarks, and licenses are only as good as the legal counsel you can afford to retain to fight your battles.