FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
Today I'm happy to share something we've been working on for a little while: "How to choose a license for your own work" is a comprehensive set of license recommendations for new projects. This page explains what factors are important to consider when making licensing decisions, and suggests specific licenses for different scenarios. If you're starting a new project (whether it's software, documentation, or something else related) and unsure what license to use, you just need this one link to find our recommendations." (Bradley Kuhn has some comments on the recommendation site on his blog as well.)
Posted May 26, 2011 15:46 UTC (Thu)
by iabervon (subscriber, #722)
[Link] (10 responses)
Posted May 26, 2011 16:07 UTC (Thu)
by Trelane (subscriber, #56877)
[Link] (8 responses)
Why would using a "permissive" (i.e. permits adding further restrictions on downstream users of the library) cause this scenario to be more likely than it would be were the library to use the LGPL?
Posted May 26, 2011 18:57 UTC (Thu)
by iabervon (subscriber, #722)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted May 26, 2011 19:07 UTC (Thu)
by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742)
[Link]
Alex
Posted May 26, 2011 19:30 UTC (Thu)
by ballombe (subscriber, #9523)
[Link]
Posted May 26, 2011 19:45 UTC (Thu)
by Trelane (subscriber, #56877)
[Link] (2 responses)
And they can mutate it without allowing further analysis.
Posted May 27, 2011 14:09 UTC (Fri)
by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
[Link] (1 responses)
The vendor can legally change the code without analysis, if the license is BSD or GPL is completely irrelevant.
Posted May 27, 2011 19:27 UTC (Fri)
by jthill (subscriber, #56558)
[Link]
It's very relevant.
With the GPL, they have to show their changes.
Posted May 26, 2011 19:03 UTC (Thu)
by xtifr (guest, #143)
[Link] (1 responses)
The complexity issue is the main reason that I still keep the BSD or MIT licenses in my bag o' licensesalthough those are the only ones not mentioned that I'd consider for my own works.
Posted May 27, 2011 6:02 UTC (Fri)
by oldtomas (guest, #72579)
[Link]
For me, it's hard to believe that someone accepting proprietary licenses dismisses any of the GPLs as "too complicated": I'm convinced that this is a red herring (or they don't read what they sign).
Of course, a radical BSD person, not accepting any proprietary license would have a convincing point.
Posted May 27, 2011 0:00 UTC (Fri)
by rahvin (guest, #16953)
[Link]
Posted May 26, 2011 16:42 UTC (Thu)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link] (15 responses)
Posted May 26, 2011 18:29 UTC (Thu)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (4 responses)
To solve the problem, RMS has to be convinced to remove the invariant sections problem (plus other more minor problems) from the next version of the GFDL.
Posted May 26, 2011 21:29 UTC (Thu)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link]
Posted May 26, 2011 21:54 UTC (Thu)
by foom (subscriber, #14868)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted May 27, 2011 20:14 UTC (Fri)
by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
[Link]
While it's possible to get the FSF to approve moving text from one to the other, it creates a situation where end users who try to do the same are violating the license, and if GCC shipped scripts to automatically integrate information extracted from source files into a manual containing GFDL text, if changes were made by third parties the result might be illegal to distribute (or even to print out!). So it's a big hairy legal mess. It's currently dealt with by treating the doxygen documentation and the libstdc++ manual as separate documents; the former is LGPL and the latter is GFDL. It's a big PITA.
Change might come eventually, but typically what happens in these cases is that any proposed text gets run past lawyers and is thought about for a year, and ideas are proposed for *further* license changes that tend to alarm users, and did I mention that I hate legal issues?
Posted May 27, 2011 15:31 UTC (Fri)
by josh (subscriber, #17465)
[Link]
Posted May 27, 2011 2:50 UTC (Fri)
by yarikoptic (guest, #36795)
[Link] (9 responses)
http://bibwild.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/creative-commons-...
Posted May 27, 2011 8:55 UTC (Fri)
by njwhite (guest, #51848)
[Link]
For things which copyright may not apply to, it's better to apply a permissive license, if it turns out to apply that's great, and if not nevermind.
Posted May 27, 2011 10:43 UTC (Fri)
by HenrikH (subscriber, #31152)
[Link] (5 responses)
Posted May 27, 2011 12:07 UTC (Fri)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link] (4 responses)
win-win, no?
Posted May 27, 2011 12:58 UTC (Fri)
by yarikoptic (guest, #36795)
[Link]
And copyright is not the only way to protect the ownership/rights, e.g. there are also "intellectual property" regulations. E.g. in Europe for data there is the sui generis database right under the national law implementing the European Database Directive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right
A related email correspondence: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/2011-Janu...
Posted May 27, 2011 13:09 UTC (Fri)
by yarikoptic (guest, #36795)
[Link] (2 responses)
public domain deposition is not trivial either because it varies across jurisdictions. E.g. in the USA there is a handful of ways how things could appear in "public domain", e.g. expired copyright (thus work was copyrighted initially) or work of USA government, etc. But at the end public domain in USA might be not public domain world-wide. That is yet another reason for those "flexible" CC0s etc.
Posted May 27, 2011 20:38 UTC (Fri)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (1 responses)
Look at the law carefully. The US Government cannot use the US courts to enforce copyright! That is NOT the same as public domain.
In other words, if I take US government material, the US government could quite conceivably sue me for breach of copyright in the High Court. Unlikely, but definitely possible ...
Cheers,
Posted May 29, 2011 19:33 UTC (Sun)
by bfields (subscriber, #19510)
[Link]
Posted May 27, 2011 14:20 UTC (Fri)
by dps (guest, #5725)
[Link] (1 responses)
If data really were not subject to copyright CC licences would be irrelevant: everybody would have the rights the CC licence grants them anyway. At least in the EU you get exclusive rights to copy, authorise the making of copies, perform, etc automatically. There are wrinkles, not limited to but including fair use, but just coping somebody else's data is not allowed.
Forms of data which are frequently copied include music, although in this case the companies need to realise that suing your customers is a sure way of losing in the longer term.
Posted May 27, 2011 14:30 UTC (Fri)
by yarikoptic (guest, #36795)
[Link]
to quote IP + tech specialist barrister, Francis Davey:
So, not quite everything is copyrightable... moreover from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_right
United States
Uncreative collections of facts are outside of Congressional authority under Article I, § 8, cl. 8, i.e. the Copyright Clause, of the United States Constitution, therefore no database right exists in the United States. The sine qua non of copyright, in the United States, is originality. (see Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service). This has not stopped database owners lobbying for the introduction of such a right, but so far bills to introduce it in the U.S. have been prevented by the successful lobbying of research libraries, consumer groups and firms who benefit from the free use of factual information.
Posted May 27, 2011 11:06 UTC (Fri)
by alfille (subscriber, #1631)
[Link]
So who is the target of this guide? If I were naive about licenses, this guide wouldn't have enough explanation to be at all compelling. And experienced open-source will find nothing new.
I know I could follow the links, but that misses the point. Add a BRIEF rationale. something like:
"We recommend you use the GPL because it allows use of your work while encouraging a community to build around it and contribute back."
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
or also Qwt: http://qwt.sourceforge.net/qwtlicense.html
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
Ask yourself: "If Microsoft used my code in the next version of Windows in order to provide some great new functionality to its users and didn't give me anything for it, not even credit, would I: (a) be upset or (b) be relieved that I don't have to cope with the buggy implementation they would have written themselves." If the answer is (b), you want a permissive license.
The problem with the permissive license is EEE (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish). It's appropriate that you would use Microsoft in your scenario as they would be the most likely to use the code, extend it with proprietary extensions to provide vendor lock-in then over time and eventually extinguish the entire ecosystem. Just look at what they did with Active Directory, they took open standards put proprietary undocumented extensions on them and used it as a weapon in the marketplace. At least with the GPL they have to tell you how they broke the system.
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
gfdl
gfdl
gfdl
Yes, there are major difficulties because of the use of doxygen to generate documentation for the standard C++ library, plus the existence of a GFDL manual for the library. The only way to maintain this is to, in essence, have two manuals.
gfdl
gfdl
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
http://www.opendatacommons.org/licenses/pddl/1-0/
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide
GPL'ing works of dubious copyrightability
GPL'ing works of dubious copyrightability
GPL'ing works of dubious copyrightability
GPL'ing works of dubious copyrightability
Wol
I didn't know that, weird; another reference:
http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#317
GPL'ing works of dubious copyrightability
Data usaualy *is* copyrightable
Data usaualy *is* copyrightable
http://www.francisdavey.co.uk/2011/01/new-kind-of-copyrig...
"In English law merely being creatively original is not enough for a
work to obtain copyright protection. For example in Creation Records v
News Group Newspapers [1997] EMLR 444, the judge held that it was not
even arguable that the scene for the Oasis album cover of Be Here Now
could be protected by copyright. It simply did not fit into any
existing protected category and the record company attempted to
argue that it was a dramatic work, a work of artistic craftsmanship or
even a collage."
FSF: Announcing our license recommendations guide