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What's the best license advice if you do want commercial organisations to be able to use your code without ambiguity? I'm looking to open-source a few bits of
by mootothemax 14y ago
What's the best license advice if you do want commercial organisations to be able to use your code without ambiguity?
I'm looking to open-source a few bits of code soon, and actively want commercial entities to not have to worry about using them, but am not sure what to go with.
- tedivm 14y agoMIT or BSD are pretty permissive. The MIT one is arguably clearer because there's only a single version, whereas the BSD has a few (three clause, four clause, etc).
- jeremyjh 14y agoApache or MIT seem to be the most popular.
- JoachimSchipper 14y agoThere are a few mostly-interchangeable flavors, but the ISC license is small and readable (and basically equivalent to the BSD license.)
- zdw 14y agoDepends on what you want to retain. Fundamentally, enforcement of any license comes down to the legal weight you're willing to put into enforcing it. If you want the copyleft style license, the GPLv2 is fairly acceptable, whereas some companies don't like the GPLv3's changes (Apple, for one). LGPLv2 with a linking exception for static binaries is another option, especially if your code component will be included in other products that require solid binaries (various App stores). If copyleft isn't required, the MIT/BSD/Apache licenses have differing levels of advertising requirements/bans, and legal/patent protections. If you really just want to get it out there in the open, declaring it public domain or no license is probably the easiest way.