i have searched the archive, and something similar has been asked before, but i did not find a solution... (and probably 'the best licence' is not the same for everyone) i want to:
-encourage (re)using and building upon my patches and sharing the results.
-discourage plagiarism
-not lock anyone (especially myself ;)) out from using my patches in a commercial and closed 'environment' (like a game on steam or an android/ios-app)
the cc-by-sa which i use all the time for music and pictures seems to be appropriate, but i understand that it is not intended for code.
gpl? would be great not to have to think about when including other work released under gpl. but can i make exceptions when it becomes necessary (app-store...)?
lgpl?
i am quite stuck. but i think i should (finally) put a proper licence on my released patches...
On 04/21/2017 10:20 AM, martin brinkmann wrote:
-not lock anyone (especially myself ;)) out from using my patches in a commercial and closed 'environment' (like a game on steam or an android/ios-app)
[...]
gpl? would be great not to have to think about when including other work released under gpl. but can i make exceptions when it becomes necessary (app-store...)?
you can *always* dual-license your own stuff. e.g. publish your patches under a very freedom-enforcing license, and use some lock-down license (for the same code) in commercial products. of course, if you do include 3rd party GPL code, you cannot do the same (only the copyright owners can change the license - and if there are multiple copyright holders, ALL must agree)
gfmasdr IOhannes
i have searched the archive, and something similar has been asked
before, but i did not find a solution... (and probably 'the best licence' is not the same for everyone) i want to:
-encourage (re)using and building upon my patches and sharing the results.
If that's what you want, evidence suggests that the way to go is a copyleft license like the GPL. You'd still have to decide whether you want v2, v3, v2-or-later, or v3-or-later, but that's outside the scope of your question. David Wheeler has written some articles on why and how the GPL encourages sharing improvements.
-not lock anyone (especially myself ;)) out from using
my patches in a commercial and closed 'environment' (like a game on steam or an android/ios-app) If that's what you want, you need a non-copyleft license like 3-clause BSD which allows use in proprietary software.
If you want both at the same time, you'll need to do it manually. That is, you license your software as GPL for everyone, then sell exceptions to specific parties who want to use your code in proprietary settings. To figure out the best way to go about that you'll probably want to contact a lawyer who specializes in software licensing. -Jonathan
Hi Martin,
On 04/21/17 18:20, martin brinkmann wrote:
i have searched the archive, and something similar has been asked before, but i did not find a solution... (and probably 'the best licence' is not the same for everyone) i want to:
-encourage (re)using and building upon my patches and sharing the results.
-discourage plagiarism
-not lock anyone (especially myself ;)) out from using my patches in a commercial and closed 'environment' (like a game on steam or an android/ios-app)
the cc-by-sa which i use all the time for music and pictures seems to be appropriate, but i understand that it is not intended for code.
gpl? would be great not to have to think about when including other work released under gpl. but can i make exceptions when it becomes necessary (app-store...)?
lgpl?
i am quite stuck. but i think i should (finally) put a proper licence on my released patches...
For my projects I tend to prefer the ISC License, it's very simple and the preferred license of the OpenBSD project. Its only restriction is attribution, so in this sense it would be most akin to a CC-BY license. Some people refer to it as a 1-clause BSD license, and for use in commercial products 2- and 3-clause BSD licenses are likewise very straightforward.
If you are interested in weaker forms of copyleft the LGPL and MPL2.0 may be good to think about. The LGPL allows dynamic linking with proprietary works, but a statically linked program is subject to the LGPL. The MPL2.0 as far as I can tell is per-file copyleft, where changes to the licensed files must be made available but cannot affect the license-status of any linked program. Unlike earlier versions of the MPL and the CDDL, MPL2.0 is specifically designed to be GPL-compatible.
Copyleft licenses would be the closest analogue to the CC-BY-SA that you're familiar with.
If you want to get your software into the Apple App Store you might have trouble using the LGPL because of its relinking provisions. The GPL is definitely banned. MPL2.0 and BSD-style licenses are ok however.
Please note this is just off the top of my head and I am no expert.
t/
thanks to everybody for the suggestions on a licence for pd-patches!
i think that i'll use the gpl, though i have not yet decided on the exact version... it allows free sharing, and to include other work without having to think too much about any licence-issues/compatibilities. and it can not be mistaken for 'public domain' too easily. and if someone wants to use anything for a non free purpose, i will have to be asked to 'dual-licence' it, much like it is the case with the cc-license. the only caveat might be the case when i have used some other gpl-work, and someone wants to make an non free app from it. (this person then has to ask a few people for permission to use the code...). but that is of course much better than not to be able to build on other gpl-code at all. (and it does not happen that often anyway...)
i heard, and then read, that GPL patches CAN be run in closed source systems running libpd, etc.
it's just GPL externals that you can't use without sharing the code.
There seems to be a difference in licensing laws between patches and externals, because externals need to be compiled into the binary, but patches are more like "media" which runs on top of that.
I wish i could find the posts i read about that again....it did make it quite clear why there is that distinction.
i heard, and then read, that GPL patches CAN be run in closed source systems running libpd, etc.it's just GPL externals that you can't use without sharing the code.
Whether this is true or not, I think it's largely irrelevant. If company X is a reputable company selling proprietary software, their lawyers will consider anything licensed "GPL" toxic and avoid it like the plague. If company X is a disreputable company, they're just going to bundle whatever they want regardless of what the license is. See all those cheapo IoT devices that ship patched versions of Linux without releasing their changes to the Linux source. There _might_ be some edge case where a naive but otherwise good-faith developer wants to sell proprietary X and tries to "roll their own" interpretation of the GPL to suit their distribution case. But applying engineering principles to a legal document will almost always get you whatever it is you're looking for, so I'm not sure the license text actually matters that much in such an edge case. -Jonathan
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