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I wrote a library and I would like to make it open-source, but I am afraid of others stealing it and taking ownership of it. I am very new to licensing software.
What should I do and what are the steps in licensing my software.
Well the first step is choosing what licence you want to release your software under. The Open Source Initiative has a useful page listing a lot of them and there's a good comparison on the KDE web site. There are lots of different options - you need to work out what you're happy for other people to do with your code. Are you happy for it to be included with commercial applications without the source code? Modified without changes being contributed back?
Then you just need to work out what the licence requires - you may just need to include a licence.txt file with the software, or apply a comment at the top of each source file.
Find an appropriate hosting site which is happy to use that licence, and you're away.
GNU Library License
Read LGPL.
Alternatives
There are many other licenses from which you can choose.
Application
Usually it is sufficient to include documentation in the header of all source files that refers to the licensing conditions. As well, it is common to include a text file containing information about how the software can be used.
Software Theft
Once publish your software under an open-source license, typically that grants everyone the right to use the code for any purpose they desire. Normally you needn't be concerned because that is the point of releasing the source code. In fact, you want to encourage others to take your software and use it. Something that is given away for free cannot be stolen.
Ownership
The real concern here, in my mind, would be people taking the software and claiming it as their own. It happens (DVD Jon, Microsoft, and SCO to name a few), and there is not much people can do about it.
If your concern is about people branching your software to create other versions, that seems more like cause for celebration. It implies that your software has been well received, so well that other people want to take it in directions that they feel solve a different niche of problems. This should be encouraged.
No matter what happens, though, you will retain ownership of whatever you produce under copyright law (at least in Canada and the United States).
Remember to consult your friendly neighbourhood IT-specialized lawyer for advice.
Custom License
Also, even if you release the source code under an open-source license, it does not mean that that is the only license you may associate with the source code. It is entirely possible that someone will approach you requesting different terms. For example, they might want to create and share a proprietary solution that uses your technology, without having to release their changes to the world. You might choose to offer them a commercial license under mutually agreeable terms and conditions.
Be careful, though: third-party contributions donated to your project, under the terms of the open-source license, are not yours to distribute under a different, custom license. If you want the flexibility of creating a custom license, you must have the ability to identify and extract your personal contributions.
If it's open source, you are relying on the honour of the people who use it, whatever form of preamble you put in each file and include with the distro bundle.
You probably want to start with the OSI licensing page.
If you make your code open source, you are explicityly allowing other people to do pretty much anything they want with it, with in the case of GPL some restrictions on what they must do ifv they choose to distribute it. This is not "stealing". If this worries you, don't make it open source.
If you want the source code to remain free but you don't require the software using your library to be free, you should use the LGPL library. Link
Otherwise, if you want the software using your library to be free, go for the classic GPL. Link
If you are afraid people can steal your work, well, maybe free licences aren't for you :-)
Instead of stealing them, they may use your code, enhance it, redistribute it etc. If you don't know much about this philosophy read here
You can start by looking at the GNU "How to use GNU license for your project" page.
However, the whole idea of open-source is sharing your code with other people. If you're afraid of "others stealing it" - keep it under your hat.
When you licence your library you still retain the copyright. The licence governs what people can and cannot do with the library. You can select from many different open source licences. Without knowing anything about how your library is intended to be used, I'm going to make the assumption that it needs to be compatible with a proprietary licence.
MIT
Permit anyone to freely use without restrictions.
LGPL
Permit anyone to freely use provided modifications are made available.
I strongly encourage you to read the terms of these licences.
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I have situation where developer claims that website which she is working for my firm is based on opensource CMS/framework Silverstripe. Second claim is that he want his code to be implemented on machine where I dont have access. In addition I have possibility to switch domain on/off from IP he provided me. I can't see actually what he coded and what is feature of cms.
My question is: Is that situation usual? And what are my rights as customer according to BSD licence? Can I view the code he is coding? Especially i have impression that he is renting software to me in that way. But want to be paid in terms of architect and develope hours. Can someone clarify situation to me?
It is "usual" for a developer to take advantage of open source components - in fact, there are many advantages of using proven open source components instead of building them from scratch (e.g. speed up the development, widely used open source component can be pretty robust etc).
You do need to make sure there isn't any licensing concerns, but in this particular case, you should be fine with BSD license, as it is one of the most permissive license out there. All you need to do is meet its attribution requirements (essentially including the original copyright and license text in tact).
RE your right to the source code... it really depends on what your contract is with the developer. The BSD license does not force developers to release any derivative work (i.e. work based on the BSD licensed code) to be also released under open source, and/or make the source code available. So you can view the source code of Silverstripe from its website (Silverstripe being open source), but your developer does not need to make the source code of her code and/or any modification she might have made on Silverstripe available to anyone. She could even sell Silverstipe code unchanged should she want to.
So whether you should have access to your developer's code is really governed by what agreement you have with the developer regarding her work i.e. whether you own all the IP produced by the developer including the source code.
IMHO the license is pretty clear: As long as you keep the copyright notice, you can do whatever you want (change, sell,...).
So what your developer is doing, is ok in terms of the SilverStripe license. The rest is up to your contract.
Is it usual? While I would try to avoid this and it's probably not the norm, it's hardly unusual. However, you are bound to the developer in the future, which might lead to problems:
"Change developer? Sure you can — if you start from scratch again."
"My rate just went up, but I'm sure it's cheaper than starting over."
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I am starting to get a small (just me at the moment) web design company off the ground and there is one thing that is a bit fuzzy to me - whether I can legally use open source apps in sites that I built without paying.
Say, for example, that I want to incorporate CKEditor into a custom built CMS on site that I produce. Should I be paying a commercial license to do so?
I am a small startup at the moment and really do not have big bucks to go out buying OEM or commercial licenses. Where is the line between "personal" and commercial when it comes to design?
CKEditor can be used without paying a commercial license. The commercial license is available if GPL, LGPL, or MPL are not satisfactory. The text below is stating that, for companies that cannot use software under an Open Source license for whatever reason, they can still purchase a commercial license.
For many companies and products, Open Source licenses are not an option.
This is why the CKSource Closed Distribution License (CDL) has been introduced.
For your use, I would recommend either LGPL or MPL to be safe. The GPL requires all software linked to the GPL code to also be GPL (or a compatible license). This is why it is considered a "viral license" by many companies. The other licenses do not carry this requirement. The LGPL specifically removes it; that is why it is known as the "Library" or "Lesser" GPL.
As far as the line between commercial and non-commercial use, that depends on the software that you are integrating with. It is perfectly fine for someone to pay you to create a site - it does not mean that the resulting work itself is commercial. You are not integrating the editor in your web design services site, so that shouldn't be the criteria you use to decide. You would be integrating it in the site you have been hired to create. If this site itself provides or is a front for commercial products or services, then it's commercial. But again, you do not need to purchase the commercial license if your client is OK with the terms of LGPL or MPL (I don't see why they wouldn't).
CKEditor (previously FCKEditor) can be licensed under GPL, LGPL, MPL, and even a CKSource Closed Distribution License (CDL). GPL and LGPL (probably MPL as well) are distribution-based licenses. That is, they only apply when you're re-distributing the software. Although it's not clear from your question, my guess is you just want to 'use' CKEditor in a website design as opposed to incorporating it into website software that you're going to distribute and/or sell. In the use-in-website case, the ASP loophole probably applies to your scenario regardless of personal or commercial use and there's no need to pay for anything or apply any licenses on your website work.
If, however, you turn around and decide you want to try an distribute and/or sell your custom CMS that incorporates the CKEditor (for example, sell it to other website designers that need a CMS), then you must abide by the rules of whichever license you select and pay accordingly if you decide the CDL license is most appropriate for your needs. The CKEditor website has good examples of reasons why you would choose the CDL option.
Have you seen the http://ckeditor.com/license page ? It seems pretty clear it's free for non-commercial use, but you need a license for commercial use.
More generally, it depends on the license of the app in question. Open-source apps are typically free to use, but may place restrictions on redistribution. IF the license is MIT, BSD or Apache you can essentially do what you want providing you keep their copyright notice there. If the license is GPL, the requirement to redistribute your code under a copyleft license too is typically incompatible with commercial use.
You'll have to check the license of whatever you're using, but in general you can use open source stuff for anything as long as you don't claim it as your own.
Unfortunately it's not as simple as just the two licensing models, since open source licenses fall under several other categories. In some cases, you cannot release your code under a different license with an open source library linked to it (like the GPL). In other cases, you can make changes to the open source code and re-release it as closed source (like the Apache License). See this reference for free software licenses and which are okay to link or release with different licenses.
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Since last August 2009, I have been working on project but then decided to release it as an open source project. The purpose of this project is to provide an alternative to existing commercial & expensive solution.
So my question is, how can I get started ? The prototype has been ready since May and now being rewritten in Java. Which license type do I need to pursue ? LGPL? MIT?
Thank you,
John.
Figure out what you want people to be able to do with it.
Do you want people to be able to use it for anything, including commercial stuff, or do you want it to be locked down as open source crazy GNU stuff?
This list should be a good start.
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category
Next, pick a place to host the project. Google Code is a great one and I believe they require your project is a certain license. So that makes your decision for you.
Another thing you might want to consider is source control. If you like SVN, Git, or something else that can matter. GitHub is a good place for git projects and almost all of your hosts will have svn support.
There are numerous Open Source licenses, but the ones I'd recommend are either BSD-style or the GPL. You'll have to decide which you like. Should people be able to take what you've done and wrap them into proprietary software and sell it, without necessarily giving back their changes? Up to you. A BSD-type license might get you more users, and a GPL-type license might get you more development help.
If you're thinking of dual-licensing, with an open source and a commercial license, you almost certainly want to go GPL for the open source license, since BSD-style doesn't leave you with enough extra rights to sell.
You keep the copyright on everything you do that's not for hire, unless you explicitly give it away. If you start getting help from other people, you need to decide what to do. You can ask for the copyright to be transferred to you, which will keep your complete copyright control at the expense of discouraging outside developers. You can trademark your software, to keep the branding, and this is independent of who owns what copyright. I'd advise talking to a lawyer about that, as trademark law isn't as clean as copyright law, and can vary from state to state. If you live in the US, you can probably get a lawyer referral from your local bar association, and it shouldn't cost much for an initial consultation.
As Jonathan said, check the OSI for information on possible licenses. Pick one from there. They'll all work, more or less, unlike a license you might write up (unless you know what you're doing). Some sites, like Sourceforge, don't allow projects that are not under an OSI-approved license, so you'll get more options with an OSI license. Moreover, lots of people are already familiar with the standard licenses, and you won't have to explain your license to them.
You could use any of the main Open Source licences - it is going to depend on what you want from the project.
GPL
Berkeley (minus advertizing clause)
MIT
Apache
You probably wouldn't use the LGPL unless what you're writing is a library.
So the Open Source Initiative for information abuot possible open source licences. Do not try to invent your own.
If you want be protective about the software you could for example one of
GPL
LGPL
But in many cases a more permissive license attracts more users.
MIT
Apache
are quite permissive.
If you want to do dual licensing then consider using GPL and a commercial license.
Before you pick a license and you have to answer yourself :
Do I want forks?
Do I want commercial usage of my software?
Do I want that my software is included in commercial software?
Do I want to enforce any license on forks?
Pick an already established license from here : http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category
If you want to setup your project then just have a look at GNU Hello, which I think is a good template to start setting up an open source project and regrading license it depends what you want from projects as explained by others already.
TL;DR Legal allows you to look up open source software licenses and get a summary, in plain English, of what you Can, Can't and Must do with the software. It also allows you to see the affects of combining two licenses, although that option is misleadingly called "Compare Licenses."
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I have a software which wrote and includes within several components each of which comes with its own license.
In sum, all 24 components in use are sharing the following licenses:
Public Domain
GPL
LGPL
BSD
MPL
Questions I ask are:
Am I allowed to sell a compiled version of this software which links to all these components?
What is this is installed on a server (being a service) does this make any difference?
What if I modify the code, must I tell the world what did I do?
Public Domain
GPL
LGPL
BSD
MPL
Be careful with these licenses here. In particular, the MPL is not compatible with the GPL. Now, many (probably most) pieces of MPL licensed software are distributed under a dual license, in which you may choose to use and distribute the software under the terms of the MPL or under the terms of the GPL (or sometimes LGPL). But in that case, you shouldn't list the MPL in the list of licenses you are distributing software under, because in order to link to software released under the GPL, you must be using the GPL (or LGPL) option of the dual-license.
Am I allowed to sell a compiled version of this software which links to all these components?
Yes (and the other licenses don't affect this, either).
What is this is installed on a server (being a service) does this make any difference?
If you are selling a service, in which you only run the software on your own computers and don't distribute the software to anyone outside of your company or organization, then none of these licenses impose any significant restrictions on what you may do. In particular, the GPL and LGPL do not require you to provide source code to anyone else in these cases.
If you are using a lot of third party software, it's still generally a good idea to contribute your patches back to the upstream project. Diverging from the upstream can cause a lot of problems in the future when you try to upgrade, and contributing code upstream will mean you get more people who are familiar with the projects you are modifying to review your code, which can help improve its quality.
What if I modify the code, must I tell the world what did I do?
If you distribute the software to anyone outside of your company or organization, then you must provide them with the source code, or provide them with a written offer to provide the source code at a later date, for no more than the cost of physically transferring the data to them.
If you do not distribute the software, then none of the licenses above impose any significant restrictions on you. The GNU Affero GPL, or AGPL, is the only license I know of that imposes significant restrictions on people who run software as a network service, and as you did not list that license in your question, I don't think it's something you need to be concerned about.
Note that I am answering these questions from the point of view of the GPL, which is the most restrictive license that you list. Effectively, when you link several pieces of software with these licenses together, you can consider the whole to be licensed under the terms of the GPL (except for the MPL, which as I've mentioned, is incompatible). See the following slide for a visual depiction of compatibility between common licenses:
(source: dwheeler.com)
Yes, but see (3).
Yes, depending on your reading of the GPL. If it is your own server, you are argualbly OK.
If you distribute (i.e. sell) the executable, the fact that one of the components is GPL'd means you must also distribute your code.
Yes, but you must have a notice somewhere saying that some of the code(ie, everything but public domain) was under so-and-so license and it's source is available here.
No, shouldn't matter
Only for the GPL and LGPL code
AFAIK, you can't link to GPL code unless you use GPL on your software too (see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem ). If you're linking some other software together with GPL code, it must have a "compatible license" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/License_compatibility ). This matched, you can sell your software for any price you want, assuming you deliver the source code or offers this delivery for no charge.
You can put GPL software on a server, with changes made on your own, without delivering the source code, as long as you don't give the binary to anyone. Google explore this possibility a lot, using GPL code to deliver proprietary services over the web. However, this behaviour is not possible with GPLv3 if it uses the "Affero clause" (aka AGPL)
If you distribute your changes as a binary, yes, you must. Otherwise, check (2).
1 : yes, cf earlz or Neil Butterworth answers.
2 : ??
3 : if you modify the GPL/LGPL libraries and you provide (give/sell) your product, you must distribute the code (more precisely, the modifications you did to the library).
My opinion : have these libraries in separate projects from yours, so there is a clear separation and you can easily provide a patch if asked.
DISCLAMER : I am not a lawyer, consult a lawyer if in doubt
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I am considering starting an OSS project and would like some advice.
I would like to use a licence that allows free use of the project for personal and non-profit use but would allow me to charge for a commercial licence (like or similar to http://www.extjs.com/company/dual.php).
Could someone please advise or link to some articles on how to approach this? Thanks in advance.
As the Open-Source-definition describes, you cannot limit the usage of your project, if you want to stay open-source. In other words: you cannot forbid a commercial use for an open-source-app. So you can choose another (non-open-source) license, that fulfills your demands, or you choose another way.
One possibility is to release only the source under open-source-license and have another license for binary distributions. As far as I know thats true for Java. That works good, if the build of your app is somewhat complicated.
You can release your app under the GPL-license. That does not forbid commercial use. But if some derivate work is created, it has to be GPL-licensed too. That works well for libraries or similar stuff that isn't used alone, but in a merged product. EDIT: As DrJokepu mentions, using a GPL-framework in a webserver-stack would help to avoid to release your own sources. That's why one extension to the GPL is the Affero GPL, that need you to release your work under the same license (AGPL) even if you don't release it, but only use it to build a public webpage. So for webservices you need the AGPL to achieve the same result.
You can't us an OSI-certified Open Source license and ban commercial use.
If what you want to do is stop somebody from taking your software and selling their version as some sort of shrink-wrapped software, you can use a GPL-style license. For maximum compatibility, I'd recommend GPLv2+ (Gnu General Public License, version 2, or any later version at your discretion). With that license, somebody can sell your software, but they have to make it clear that anybody can get the source, and that it can be freely redistributed. That would, I think, cover most of what people want to ban as commercial use.
The producing open-source software book has a great section on dual licensing. It outlines the approach where a single entity, such as a foundation "owns" the copyright to a projects source.
The foundation chooses to make the source available under two different licensing schemes, one closed and another that is open-source. For your particular case you will want to ensure that you stick with a strong copyleft license (i.e. such as GPL) to prevent commercial derivative works of the freely available source code.
However, as others have noted, this does not prevent commercial entities from using your software, just from taking your work and selling it to others. In some cases this works out, as strangely enough, many organisations would rather purchase something than download and use something for free. These are the same sorts of organisations that need legally binding contracts with vendors and some form of support. I.e. When you sell software you are actually selling a whole bunch of other services at the same time as a "shrink wrapped" product.
Now, how can code be kept closed and sold, as well as released under the GPL license? The mind bending legal part of the whole arrangement, is that contributions of IP to the foundation are not made under the GPL license. Rather, developers give their IP to the foundation under "contributor agreements" which pass on copyright of their changes to the foundation and permit the foundation to release the code under two different licenses. This last little caveat is the big downside to dual licensing, sometimes developers are not interested in contributor agreements, they want there changes only available under the open-source license and nothing else. Quite a few contributor agreements that kick around the place, but here is the one that sun uses for MySQL.