Open Source License Helper Tool • Hacker News Board

Re: Open Source License Helper Tool

#71

Post by hawski » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 11:31 AM UTC

vortico wrote: post #10

May I recommend replacing The Unlicense with CC0? ( https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode ). It has all the same bullet points except is a bit tighter in countries where a public domain release is not legally valid. Unfortunately it is more difficult to release works into the public domain than The Unlicense addresses. The Unlicense is likely sufficient for all foreseen cases in countries except…

I find the Zero Clause BSD [0] the simplest for the purpose.

Here it is in its entirety:

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

[0] https://spdx.org/licenses/0BSD.html

Re: Open Source License Helper Tool

#72

Post by vonmoltke » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 11:47 AM UTC

Avamander wrote: post #67

JoshTriplett wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the license did its job quite nicely. If those companies cared enough to negotiate new license terms, they could pay you for such a license.

It's not only companies who ask for license changes, Google and other employees ask licences to be changes too simply because the corporation they work for forbids even looking at the source otherwise. For example: https://github.com/pebble-dev/rebblestore-api/pull/31

That is what the commenter claims, but the link provided for support refers only to submitting patches that cover work Google owns. I found nothing about a prohibition on reading code, not a prohibition on using those licenses for personal projects.

Re: Open Source License Helper Tool

#73

Post by SeanLuke » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 12:28 PM UTC

MIT/X11 come from a kindler, gentler era, and so lack a patent release, which is a huge flaw nowadays. Is there any legitimate reason one would select MIT/X11 over Apache?

Re: Open Source License Helper Tool

#74

Post by captainbland » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 12:30 PM UTC

Needs more peer production license.

http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Peer_Production_License

c. You may exercise the rights granted in Section 3 for commercial purposes only if:

    i. You are a worker-owned business or worker-owned collective; and 
    ii. all financial gain, surplus, profits and benefits produced by the business or collective are distributed among the worker-owners

Re: Open Source License Helper Tool

#75

Post by SeanLuke » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 12:31 PM UTC

callekabo wrote: post #61

I prefer copyfree licenses http://copyfree.org/ and usually release stuff under the Copyfree Open Innovation License (COIL) http://coil.apotheon.org/

I read that entire front webpage and still have no idea what a copyfree license is.

Re: Open Source License Helper Tool

#76

Post by rectang » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

captainbland wrote: post #74

Needs more peer production license. http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Peer_Production_License c. You may exercise the rights granted in Section 3 for commercial purposes only if: i. You are a worker-owned business or worker-owned collective; and ii. all financial gain, surplus, profits and benefits produced by the business or collective are distributed among the worker-owners

That's a field of use restriction, and thus incompatible with the open source definition curated by OSI.

Re: Open Source License Helper Tool

#77

Post by captainbland » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 2:31 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #76

captainbland wrote: post #74

Needs more peer production license. http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Peer_Production_License c. You may exercise the rights granted in Section 3 for commercial purposes only if: i. You are a worker-owned business or worker-owned collective; and ii. all financial gain, surplus, profits and benefits produced by the business or collective are distributed among the worker-owners

That's a field of use restriction, and thus incompatible with the open source definition curated by OSI.

As true as it is, I don't believe their definition is necessarily what is best for software or for developers. I don't believe that it is just that ownership of a product or its copyright, even in an open source capacity, should be transferred from developer to business owner if they're separate people.

Overly permissive licenses encourage private business to take advantage of software commons without necessarily contributing any of their changes back to it, which alienates their own developers from the changes at the moment and while at the moment it is trendy for companies to create software under these licenses, there's no mechanism to guarantee future updates will also be released in such a permissive way.

Re: Open Source License Helper Tool

#78

Post by overcast » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

caniszczyk wrote: post #65

I also recommend TLDRLegal: https://tldrlegal.com

Dang. Now THAT is a helpful resource. Thank you for pointing me to this.

Re: Open Source License Helper Tool

#79

Post by dfox » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

megaman22 wrote: post #43

abritinthebay wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why LGPL exists.

LGPL is problematic to some extent outside the original C-ist style of static and dynamic link libraries. At least that's what I've been told.

It is problematic even in C(++) because of header files. This is why GNU libstdc++ and similar gcc-related libraries are not LGPL.

Re: Open Source License Helper Tool

#80

Post by mlinksva » Wed, Jun 06, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

vortico wrote: post #10

May I recommend replacing The Unlicense with CC0? ( https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode ). It has all the same bullet points except is a bit tighter in countries where a public domain release is not legally valid. Unfortunately it is more difficult to release works into the public domain than The Unlicense addresses. The Unlicense is likely sufficient for all foreseen cases in countries except…

I wrote the first bulleted link, should have included a gigantic caveat: CC0-1.0 expressly excludes any patent grant. That makes it dangerous for non-trivial software, is why CC eventually withdrew it from consideration for OSI approval, and why it isn't highlighted on choosealicense.com which is primarily about software -- though it is mentioned on https://choosealicense.com/non-software/

I think the reason choosealicense.com originally featured Unlicense relative to other unconditional license options is that one of the creators of the Unlicense (bhuga) was also one of the creators of choosealicense.com. But previous paragraph is why it's still there.