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Ask HN: How to choose a license on GitHub?
I have a plugin up on GitHub and someone asked me for a license.txt file, which is fine, I can toss one up, but not sure on what to put in. I looked at some samples but they are all quite different.
Basically I want to make it completely free to use for whatever purpose, commercial or otherwise, only thing I ask for is credit, so they can't say they built it, in their license somewhere it would have to say "build on yadda ydadda".
- horsehead 14y agoThe GNU license? http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
- saiko-chriskun 14y agodid you not read the original post?
- horsehead 14y agoI did.
- noahc 14y agoIt violates the "only thing I ask..." line because it requires that all derivative works be GPL as well.
- horsehead 14y agoWhile I'm not exactly up to speed on all the details of the GPL, but i was under impression that you could tweak licenses as you wanted .... in that case, the GPL would give you a nice framework to start with. That's if i'm remembering licensing conventions correctly.
- sbank 14y agoOP only wants credit, so the GPL is a bad choice. In my opinion, the GPL is awful. It is among other things: 1. Programmer hostile. For the most part, the people who can make money off GPL licensed software are system administrators, people selling support and training, and so forth. If you are a developer and try to use the software, you better be careful with how you use it. 2. Riddled with nonsensical legal fiction. The limits regarding linking are arbitrary. What about "linking" with the software by using its output with pipes, speaking to it over sockets, and so on? 3. A poor choice for people who love open source. Are you an author who creates open source software, and you want to link your software with a library written in GPL? Careful, or the GPL monster will eat you and make your code GPL too. My own hate of the GPL aside, the main thing to take away is that it doesn't fit OP. People who create software can pick whatever license they wish, and I respect that. I just reserve the right to despise the GPL. OP, perhaps the ISC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISC_license http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISC_license)? It is BSD style and keeps it to a minimum.
- notmyname 14y agoCheck out http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category. You can probably find something you like in the "License that are popular and widely used or with strong communities" section. The basic requirements that you described are probably met by either Apache2 or BSD. Others like GPL meet your requirements but add other requirements as well (eg derivative works must be open as well). Often times licensing can become a religious debate. Read the major ones and choose the one that is best for you.
- zoowar 14y agoHave a look at CC0 https://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/ https://creativecommons.org/choose/zero/
- tnorthcutt 14y agoI'd suggest looking at the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/