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I've been reviewing the contributions documentation for Google new language, and was curious about the idea of contributing a new package. It states that this should be included at the top of contributed source code:
// Copyright 2009 The Go Authors. All rights reserved.
// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
// license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
My understanding of a BSD-style license is that it essentially means that the user needs to attribute the code to you, but can do whatever else they want.
Further down it says:
If you are the copyright holder, you will need to agree to the individual contributor license agreement...
In the "individual contributor license agreement", it says that Google has patentable rights to the contributed code:
You hereby grant to Google and to recipients of software distributed by Google a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the Work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by You that are necessarily infringed by Your Contribution(s) alone or by combination of Your Contribution(s) with the Work to which such Contribution(s) was submitted.
To what extent does Google own any Go contributions? Do they have full rights to profit from these contributions?
To what extent does Google own any Go contributions?
You are not required to transfer copyright to Google. You still OWN the copyright.
You are not required to transfer ownership of patents to Google. You still OWN the patents.
In short Google does not OWN any IP that they didn't already own.
But you do grant Google the unlimited right to use and distribute your contributions, and you grant the right to use to downstream folks. Clause 2 covers copyrights, and clause 3 covers patent rights. Moreover you grant this as an irrevocable license (i.e. you cannot change your mind) and for free.
Do they have full rights to profit
from these contributions?
There is no such a thing as "a right to profit" in a legal or moral sense. Hence "full rights to profit" is not a valid characterization of the rights that you currently have.
By granting Google non-exclusive, non-revocable copyright and patent licenses, your remaining rights are no longer exclusive. Google will be able to profit your contributions, but so will you. You will have reduced your scope for personal profit, but that was not ever a "right".
No, it just means that if you contribute to Google's project, Google can still do whatever they want with it.
You are the copyright holder, of course. If your code gets included into Go, you become part of The Go Authors.
This is a common practice nowadays.
Effectively, through the Contributors Agreement you are sharing copyright with Google.
That means, in the end, Google has copyright over the entire codebase. This gives them the right to relicense the codebase however they want should they see fit. (Copyright owner determines license).
The primary goal of the CA is to ensure and assert that the contributor has the rights they are granting to the project (patents, copyright, etc.).
Some projects, for example, would want a patent grant, but are not interested in any copyright, as they have no intention of relicensing the project.
Mind, since the license is BSD, a copyright grant is really just a formality, because of how liberal the BSD license is in the first place.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer
Grant of Patent License.
Means if you have a patent on something in your contribution, you allow Google to use it without worrying about IP crap.
In other words:
Patent License = Permission to use the "patented technology" (if any).
It's irrecoverable: meaning you can't change your mind later.
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I wrote a software that used some pieces code from other software under a little modification. I'm confused by those copy right term and license term. Where should I put those copyright or license statement?
Here is the detail, there are three project called A, B and C.
A use LGPL license.
B use no license but put some copyright statement in a file called LICENSE.
C use neither license nor copyright statement. It only write a line indicating author.
I took pieces of code from those projects and modified them (I only took some functions actually). So what should I do?
I already checked other questions. They said putting a file called LICENSE into root directory would be enough. But what should I do with that file?
Can anybody help?
Thank you.
The LICENSE file will contain information on what kind of license your code is using.
This license should not violate any terms in the license of A,B or C(which you should stay away from as it doesn't have a license) as Jeff Atwood explains:
Because I did not explicitly indicate a license, I declared an implicit copyright without explaining how others could use my code. Since the code is unlicensed, I could theoretically assert copyright at any time and demand that people stop using my code. Experienced developers won't touch unlicensed code because they have no legal right to use it.
Without a license, the code is copyrighted by default. People can read the code, but they have no legal right to use it. To use the code, you must contact the author directly and ask permission.
source: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/pick-a-license-any-license.html
As far as mentioning the projects(A/B/C) from which you have taken code from goes, it is only necessary if the license of A/B/C requires you to do so.
A sample LICENSE file template:
project_name by author
This file is part of project_name. project_name is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
project_name is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with project_name. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
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I am a web developer, and I don't have enough knowledge about software licenses. I wish to publish some of my works, and I need to select licenses for them. My software product is free of cost, but I have some restrictions on distribution/modification of the code.
It’s free of cost (but donations are acceptable).
The source code is freely available. You can use, customize or edit/remove code (as long as the basic nature of the software is not changed).
You don’t have any permission to change the product name.
There are some libraries and classes which are in a folder called “myname”. You don’t have permission to rename “myname”.
You can contribute any additions or modifications to my project, to the original source repository (the contributor’s name/email/site link will be listed in the credit file).
You can’t remove the original author’s name from the license.
You can put the license file or license code anywhere in the project file or folder.
You can redistribute this code as free or commercial software.
Are all these restrictions valid? Given these restrictions, which license should I use?
My main intention is to make the product more popular with free source code while ensuring the original author is not ignored. The product is open.
Thank you all; the above points are because of my lack of knowledge of license terms.
You can help me to correct or remove some of the above points. What I’m basically looking for is in the paragraph above.
I don't think the following are currently covered by any license I am familiar with:
Don't deviate from the basic nature of the software.
You can use/customize/redistribute as free or commercial, but you can't change the name.
I'd argue that while the product may be free and "source code available", that what you're describing is not "Open Source". Notably, you're not letting people fork and/or repurpose the code, both of which are main features of an Open Source code base.
By retaining copyright, no one can "take your name off" of your code, as they don't possess copyright, but not being able to rename the project, or change the names of folders, that's pretty extreme.
So, I would suggest you think through your motivations behind releasing the code and from where these restrictions originiate.
As others have noted, you have some rather odd requirements:
“Don’t deviate the basic nature of the software.” (Do you specify the “basic nature of the software” in the program itself, and are you going to argue in court over something so vague?)
“You don’t have any permission to change the product name.” (Usually, if anything, the opposite is required: if you change it, you have to change the name, so people don’t think that the modifications represent your work.)
“There are some libraries and classes which are in a folder called ‘myname’: you don't have permission to rename ‘myname’.” (Similar to the first, but more concrete — though I’m not sure what the point of this is.)
Based on these requirements, I think the license which fits most closely with your stated desires is the GNU Free Documentation License. As indicated by the title, it’s almost never used for source code of programs.
It is the only license I know of which allows you to prohibit users from changing or improving specific parts of the work. For example, I think you could say that the folder “myname” is an “invariant section” (note that I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice).
It’s not compatible with the GPL, and (the way you’d use it) it’s not DFSG-free. It’s rarely used for software, so distributors and contributors might have trouble understanding how to apply it. In short, you probably wouldn’t be making any friends with this route.
BSD license should cover this. I have chosen it for my open-source stuff too.
As written your requirements don't fit into any specific license out there (that I know of), and since you are not looking to make money, getting a lawyer to draft one would be rather expensive, and fundamentally counter-productive.
I suggest you look at licenses for different open source projects out there and see which one matches closely with what you want, and use that.
To get everything you want you will probably have to write your own license. This is not necessarily in your best interests. You are going to have to make a choice between popularity and control:
If you use an established license, you will have a very wide audience for your work, which will have a chance to become popular.
If you insist on certain restrictions (the name can't be changed) you will keep greater control, but you will lose potential users; because lots of organizations won't look at software with a nonstandard license.
Your requirements are very close to BSD, and not that different from MIT. I recommend you browse the popular licenses blessed by the Open Source Initiative and choose the one you feel is closest to your desires. I've checked your edits, and if you insist that I make a recommendation, for your wishes I recommend the Simplified BSD license. It's a good, popular license that is often used by developers who want their work to be very widely deployed.
If you ask people in a README file not to fork your software and change the name, as a matter of personal preference rather than licensing terms, most people will honor your wishes.
I think you will have a hard time finding an existing license to fit your needs because you seem to require two separate sets of permissions: a MIT-like set of permissions for the source in general, with the exception of a locked-down "myname" folder. You may be better off separating your code into two separate parts, each with a different license. The MIT license seems to fit your conditions for the bulk of the code (except for the "basic nature of the software" statement, I'm not sure what you mean by that). The MIT license requires the copyright statement bearing your name to be retained in all copies of the source, so this would address the concerns you bring up in your first edit. Depending on the particular reasons why you need to add special restrictions for the "myname" folder, you may have to write a custom license (you can take an existing one that's close and simply tweak it) that governs only that folder. Your entire project doesn't have to fall under a single license.
3) You don't have any permission to
change the product name.
You might be asking for problems with this one. If someone takes your code, enhances it, and releases it with the same name then you will have two very different programs out there with the same name. This is very confusing for potential users. Is the the original version? The version that was modified with a German-language interface? The version that has a fix for a specific bug? When they all have the same name, it's difficult to determine. If a user has a bad experience with a particularly buggy (or worse, virus-infected) derivative work, they will be unlikely to use any version of your software because it appears to be the same program as the buggy version.
I get the impression that you are mostly wanting to avoid having your work copied and completely re-branded without any acknowledgment of your involvement. I might suggest that instead of prohibiting name changes, require that derivative works reference your original product name (for example, "ShinyNewProgram - Powered By YourOriginalName"). Many open-source projects trademark their product names and a provision like your #3 would then be a violation of trademark law; the more common solution is to require a new name (to differentiate it from the original) and to require clear attribution of the original work.
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My question consists of multiple points that are inherently related, I apologize for that. I tried splitting it up a little more, but I would keep repeating myself.
What exactly is required to apply an open source license to a code base that is my Intellectual Property?
A lot of Open Source projects include a full copy of the license somewhere in a root directory but do also have some sort of file header including a license description, disclaimer and a copyright notice. Is that really necessary or does it depend on the license type?
If someone else contributes changes to this file, does he need to be named in the copyright notice too?
Disclaimer
I am not a lawyer, so you should really consult with one to get absolutely correct answers here.
To the best of my knowledge...
Whenever you author something, whether it be code or anything else, you automatically become the copyright owner of that work (unless you've signed an agreement whereby it is "work for hire").
As the copyright owner, you can apply whatever license you like. The fact is that, if you don't give out a license, then no one has any right to use, copy, modify, distribute, etc. your coyrighted work. So, users need your license to have permission to use the project (if you don't give a license, it cannot, contrary to popular belief, be presumed public domain). So, you don't need to worry about people ignoring the license... if they can't point to a license where you grant them rights to use your software, as the copyright owner, you can sue them for using your copyrighted work without your express permission to do so.
It is typical in open source projects to place the license in a file named "LICENSE" or "COPYING" in the top-level directory of the project. I suggest that you stick to this convention, since that is where people will look for the license. It is also good to indicate what the license is on the project's website, so that people don't have to download your whole project before they know what the license agreement is.
It is not necessary to include a full copy of the license in each source code file, although this is fairly common practice. Keep in mind, though, that putting a full copy of the license (or at least some indication of copyright ownership and the name of the license, if it is a well-known license) in any header files that you install will avoid any confusion as to where the header files originated, so it is reasonable to do that.
If you own the project and others contribute in a fashion similar to "work for hire", then it is not necessary to name the contributors. However, you should make it explicit (and get a permanent record of an agreement from contributors) that you will remain the sole copyright owner of the project, despite contributions made. Otherwise, the contributors do have copyright ownership over the files/code that they contributed.
One last thing, not related to the question... I highly recommend that you avoid GPL and LGPL, and go for a more permissive license (e.g. MIT, New BSD, Simplified BSD), as the former will limit the adoptability of your code, and projects with more liberal licenses, if they do become adopted in the industry, have the potential to be backed by the industry (e.g. the Apache Foundation has strong industry support, because, unlike GNU/FSF which mistakenly views open source and closed source as enemies, sees them as collaborators, and so uses licenses that allow their projects to be widely adopted by the industry world).
Disclaimer: IANAL. That said, here are some random thoughts on the topic:
The term "Intellectual Property" bundles together many kinds of law: patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secrets, among others. Applying a license to a work you create will affect how your work can be used. Because each license allows for different uses of your code, how you apply the license is usually specific to which license you choose. For example, information about how to license your code under the Apache 2.0 license can be found at http://www.apache.org/licenses/. Note that projects managed by the Apache Software Foundation also require each contributor to grant the ASF copyright for the work. Granting of copyright is separate from the license.
I'd recommend reading Van Lindberg's "Intellectual Property and Open Source" to learn some terminology, and if you have significant commercial interests related to the code, spend a few hours with a lawyer.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, the below is simply my understanding of OSS licensing. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate any corrections.
Clearly state (on your project website, in source code, documentation, splash screen, about dialog, etc.) that the project is licensed under whichever license you select.
Considering the nature of open source, if a portion of your project is used in a different project owned by someone else (e.g. some useful utility class), having the "basics" of the license as part of your source code's header text makes it clear which license governs the use of that specific source file, and who owns the copyright on that portion of code in the project as a whole.
Yes, unless they have supplied you with documentation stating that they have transferred copyright to you (I believe some larger projects require contributors to do this?).
For an example of applying an OSS license to a project, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html
A license is simply the rules you expect others to abide by if they do anything (use it, modify it, post it, make fun of it, whatever) with your code.
a) You can put what you want, but to be taken seriously, you may use a license that is already nicely written and accepted ... check opensource dot org /licenses/category for a (loong) list
b) To decide which type of license, check out this recent aricle: http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/features/guestopinions/blog/ringing-in-the-new-year-with-clean-intellectual-property/?cs=38892&page=1 . Common ones are GPL V2, LGPL, Apache, New BSD- check out the summary matrix on Page 2 of the article
c) make sure your software doesn't include code from other open source or 3rd party, otherwise you'll be claiming theirs as yours- not a good idea! There are tools you can use on trial basis to scan your code.
d) put the text of the license in a License.txt or Copyright.txt file in the folder. Also add a simple (or complex, if you wish) header to the source files as Kimvais mentions in the previous post.
Good luck.
Short non-lawyer answer;
Nothing except making it clear to anyone that you, the sole author of the code, license the code under whatever terms.
It is advisable to have the license file in the root directory. I would personally add in the "top comments" of all files the line Copyright 2010 <Your Name>. Released under <license name> in <Your country>. The last part is so that you can claim that the license was never meant to be interpreted under any other law than your local (so you can get a competent lawyer in your home country in the event that everything goes wrong)
I would say that this depends on the license you choose
For further info, read this book - or consult a lawyer with experience of software licenses.
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Today I had a bad surprise learning about some implications of the GPL license, mainly that I couldn't use it as freely as I thought.
Now I know.
What else should I know, and more widely, what should every developer know about legal things like that?
You can separate employees, freelancers, open source projects contributors (etc.) or give a more broad answer.
Twelve Legal Considerations for Software Development
Software is copyrighted if it is made available to the general public. It is no longer necessary to put a copyright notice on the application or in the source code. The owner of the copyright is the author(s) or company paying the author(s).
The copyright of software can be assigned by the owner of the copyright, or it can be retained by the owner and the software can be licensed to the user or users by the owner.
Libraries used in development probably have restrictions in their use and distribution. GPL does not make a library public domain, nor does the fact that the library comes with a development platform. You should read and understand the license before you distribute your application. Some libraries require royalty payments, although this has become less common in recent years.
Software patent lawsuits are crap shoots. You should not, of course, knowingly violate a software patent. However, there is a small but real chance some company will sue you for violating their patent. This may happen even if you develop your software independently, you never heard of the patent, and the patent covers a technique that is intuitively obvious and almost completely unrelated to your software. There is not a lot you can do to avoid this, given the current USPTO policies, other than buy insurance. The good news is that patent trolls generally sue large companies with lots of money.
If you use an employee or freelancer to develop software, you should make it clear, in writing, who owns the copyright to the application, including the source code. Some freelancers and contract development companies consider the source code their own property, leaving the company dependent on the original developer(s). This is legal if it's in the development agreement.
If you have an employee who develops software "off the clock," you should make it clear who owns that software, and what kind of software the employee should be able to write and distribute outside of the company.
If you are an employee or freelancer developing software, you should make it clear who will own the copyright to your application, before you begin development. Also, you should know or clarify who owns software you write on your own time. Some companies have clauses in employment agreements claiming ownership to any software written by a developer during the period of employment, whether at home or at work. Many companies have non-compete clauses in employment agreements that restrict the software an employee can produce for distribution outside the company. Sometimes these restrictions are pretty broad.
A trademark is a name or symbol, not the software itself. If you distribute software, you should (a) make sure your application name and "mark" or design of the name is not "confusingly similar" with other applications, and (b) register your trademark. Date of first use is important in resolving conflicts, so you should document when the application is first used in commerce.
When you name an application, check for registered trademarks, but also check Google. An application with first use of the name may be able to take your name and trademark after your application is successful, even if they have not registered the trademark and you have.
When you use or sign a contract or agreement, make sure both parties understand it. In an employment agreement, mentioning any potentially sensitive areas up front can prevent a lot of problems later. In a development agreement, if both parties know who owns the source code, or who is responsible for upgrades, or who is responsible for maintenance, etc., going into the development project, then there is much less likelihood of a lawsuit after the application has been completed. In a distribution agreement, make sure the distributor understands the responsibilities and term of the agreement.
Every non-trivial application has bugs (or "design considerations" :-)). Any user agreement or distribution agreement should make it clear that you are not responsible for bug-free software, and you cannot be expected to fix all bugs. Make it clear that changes, fixes, and upgrades are made at the option (or best efforts) of the developer, and make it clear who pays for fixes and upgrades.
Even after you consult a lawyer about software development and distribution agreements, you should read agreements from other software companies and see what their lawyers came up with.
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
When in doubt, contact a lawyer.
I'm no lawyer but over time I have gathered a few rules of thumb from legal people that you can use to save time:
GPL license is 'copy-left' or 'viral'. It means that any code that you write that depends on a GPL component must also be released under GPL. A good rule of thumb is that if you need a GPL component to compile your software, your software must be released under a GPL license.
You are not obliged to make your source available if you're not distributing your software. For example, if you run the software for internal purposes or on a web server you do not need to release the source. That is why Google doesn't need to release their software that use GPL libraries. It was a key contention point in GPL v3.
LGPL (Library or Lesser GPL) only requires you to GPL your own source code if you incorporate the LGPL-ed library in such a way that it becomes irreplaceable. Your own software do not need to be GPL if you only 'use' the library. Including header files and linking against a .dll/.so of the library is one of the ways you can 'use' LGPL-ed code without any obligations, except for the proper copyright notice.
BSD License (the Apache License is very similar) allows you to create commercial extensions of that use the open source component. That is why Apple chose FreeBSD over Linux as the kernel for OSX.
MPL is very commercial friendly because Netscape thought that they might make some money out of Mozilla at the time the license was written.
It often helps to contact the maintainer of the Open Source project. They are in the best position to advice you about the original intention of the license as well as their own views on open source. Sometimes maintainers are willing to release software under multiple licenses to help you out. Often they are not. Depends on the person who owns the copyright.
The KDE project has a handy matrix
I think Legal Guide to Web & Software Development by Stephen Fishman Attorney is what you're looking for.
Review
An amazing book! Answers nearly
every legal question you can imagine
and some you would have never thought
of. -- John Dvorak, PC Magazine
Covers every imaginable detail
important to such a rapidly growing
and intangible medium. -- Entrepreneur
This book passes my own personal test
for legal guides --with higher marks
than any other legal guide. -- Jeff
Duntemann, Editor, PC Techniques
Magazine
Product Description
Protect your rights, and your hard work!
The laws covering website and software
development are complex and confusing,
but if you don't untangle them, it
could cost you thousands of dollars in
attorneys' fees and lawsuits.
Fortunately, Legal Guide to Web &
Software Development decodes this
complex area of the law, thoroughly
and in reader-friendly English. It
also provides contracts, agreements
and legal forms on CD-ROM, with
step-by-step instructions for filling
them out, so you can protect your
software and website without paying a
lawyer's ransom.
Use Legal Guide to Web & Software
Development to learn:
what kind of legal protection you need
the strengths and limitations of each type of protection
how to avoid infringement
which provisions you need when drafting an agreement
how to obtain permission to use other people's materials
You'll find complete, step-by-step
instructions to draft:
employment agreements
contractor and consultant agreements
development agreements
license agreements
The 5th edition of Legal Guide to Web
& Software Development is completely
updated to provide the latest case law
and statutory revisions.
Some other suggestions :
Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants (Same author).
Consultant & Independent Contractor Agreements (Same author).
Software Licensing Handbook by Jeffrey I. Gordon.
Practical Guide to Software Licensing for Licensees & Licensors by H. Ward Classen.
The Tech Contracts Pocket Guide: Software and Services Agreements for Salespeople, Contract Managers, Business Developers, and Lawyers by David Tollen.
If a freelancer or contractor: make sure you have good liability insurance and know what's covered under it.
For instance, mine doesn't cover liability for mistakes made in code that might expose credit card numbers. So I don't touch that stuff any more!
For employees : we should be able to give a first round of advice to your clients -- like can they/we use the component we want, in their application ?
For freelancers : we must be able to give strong advice to your clients ; and choose which components we can use for the applications we develop for them.
You course, your word is not as good as the advices a lawyer can get you ; but you can already help for a first round ; for instance, to say "we definitly can't use this because it would mean..."
In the end, the lawyer will know much about corner cases -- but if you can help a bit...
For OSS contributors : knowing some differences between free licences can matter if you care what people can do with your code (redistribute ? modify ? use it in commercial application ? use it in proprietary application ? )
One answer has asserted that the law is not like code. I disagree.
In the early days, IBM paid programmers by the instruction. (Someone I knew said he worked with a programmer who got rich this way. Apparently the guy didn't know how to use the machine's index register; he wrote a memory-zero routine that manually stored zero in each memory address.)
There was also a time (long ago) when lawyers were paid by the word. This helped to popularise practices such as addressing people as "the most highly esteemed such-and-such" and other verbosities.
I just read an answer on SO that said VB.NET 2008 still allows line numbers. You can still run pure DOS on a modern PC. And there is much truth to the joke that all COBOL programs are decended from a common ancestor by incremental changes. Backwards-compatibility, and "historical reasons", are rife in our field.
This is comparable to the realm of law. There are laws which make small (or big) changes to other laws. You've got a kind of dependency-hell. There are some ridiculous historical laws (in Hobart, Tasmania, it's illegal for a man to wear a woman's dress after sunset - because once upon a time, convicts would dress up as women and mug people) that nobody would dream of enforcing, just as there are some historical features in software that nobody uses anymore.
Laws often have unintended consequeuences (bugs!), get used in creative ways (hacks!), contain loopholes (security vulnerabilities!), some of which are intentional (backdoors!), get modified (patches!) or overturned (uninstallation!).
Yes, laws (unlike code) are subject to interpretation. But I think this is rather like code maintenance. It helps to adjust laws to new social norms.
To answer the question directly: every developer should know that law is rather like a ridiculously enormous software project that has been in development for hundreds of years. (Actually, each country has its own project, and they solve problems in different ways.) In theory, after reading a licence you will know what you can and can't do with your code. But if a competent programmer can't spot all the bugs in his code just by reading it, then what chance does a non-lawyer have of analysing the corner cases and grey areas of a legal document?
Like with software source code, you can usually get the gist of a legal document by reading it, but if you need to know something specific, ask a professional.
NOLO (I don't work for them) publishes a good set of legal how to books for the layman.
http://www.nolo.com/products/a-legal-guide-to-web-&-software-development-SFT.html
I would answer this in the same way that I would answer "what should every lawyer know about programming?" That is to say, know that there's no way you can possibly know the in-depth field well enough to do more than the simplest of things. Get an expert.
You should know the basic rights and obligations of the license you are going to use. It's not that hard, and even if there are plenty of them, you need to read carefully only those you are going to use or touch. Just read them, in most cases they are quite clear.
Anything else you could need, well, that depends. Patenting ? Trademarks ? If you need these things, chances are that you are in a company and have a legal department to do this for you.
I would always assume that the developers of a project want any software using their work to be released under the exact same licence. Read their FAQs and legal pages for more information and don't hesitate to contact the developers/maintainers if you are still unsure.
If you want help understanding the details of a licence agreement, talk to a lawyer.
Don't work in a country that has more lawyers than developers.
An extremely large percentage of all (U.S.) software patents are bogus, but you can't pay or wait for them to be invalidated.
If you want to use/develop open source software, use an existing license and don't modify it. Don't go near the borders of what the license is supposed to mean.
The name of a good IP lawyer.
6.If you have an employee who develops software "off the clock," you should make it clear who owns > that software, and what kind of software the employee should be able to write and distribute
outside of the company.
freedom of speech right as stated in most constitutions (esp. if devs make free s/w off-the-clock) can make such terms fail miserably in courts
The law is not like code. It is not a well cast set of steps and rules that can be unambiguously understood.
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I would like to open source my complete application and I don't mind at all people using my code where-ever as long as they keep the copyright notice of the work. I also need food on the table, which license allows me to have some money if say a commercial site/company wants to use the code?
Does it really matter which license I choose? I can just have a "paypal donate" button and choose a liberal license?
any help.
You could follow the MySQL model and dual license your code under the GPL and a commercial license. See here for their license terms
This way anyone who complies with the GPL license gets your code for free. Anyone with a commercial app that isn't GPL compliant has to pay you a fee for the use of your code.
Is your code really that good / worthwhile to go to all the effort? My advice would be that unless you have a truly awesome & polished product, pick a liberal license and add a paypal donation button on the website. If your code is popular you'll get extra kudos, and there are still possibilities for making money in the long term.
This may be a reflection of my own personal projects more than anything, but even so - I'd caution against getting all excited about selling your code until you know there's a market for it.
The license is only part of the process. First you need to think of a business model. What is the value that a potential customer is willing to pay for. You can offer services, training, consulting, additional plug-ins/modules/features etc.
Depending on this analysis you then can look which license fits the best into your business model. That might be a dual license, might be only one. If your business model works better with your software being distributed widely, a more liberal license works probably better, and so on.
Hope this helps a little!
Glen is right: if you use GPL, a commercial company can use your code but they have to open their changes to your code, which they may not be willing to do: so instead they'll contact you and pay for a commercial license.
Yes, it does matter which license you choose. If you don't specify a licence then by defaults all your rights are reserved, and no one will use your code (except dishonest people who don't care about licenses anyways). So if you want your code to gain visibility it's important to use an open-source or free license.
You could also go for a commercial license only. This makes sure no one can use your code (legally) without paying you, but you also run the risk that no one will bother.
No liberal open source license can prevent commercial use of your product, without payment. If you really want payment, you should dual license your code, with a restrictive open source licence such as GPL and a commercial license that removes those restrictions on the payment of a fee.
One option is to make the software freely available, and provide a consulting/support service for your software. Businesses may want your expertise in configuring or extending the software, or providing support when things go wrong.
This of course depends on what sort of software it is.