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1500 questions
242
votes
3 answers

What are the essential differences between the BSD and MIT licences?

There are many articles out there which cover the topic in length and breadth, but so far I haven't found a nice, concise answer to the question. What are the most important differences between the BSD and the MIT licenses and in what way do their…
G.Rassovsky
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180
votes
2 answers

What can I assume if a publicly published project has no license?

There is some code on GitHub that I would like to use. The repository has no public declaration of license that I can find. But this particular project has over 200 forks and is a pretty active history of public issues and pull requests. There is…
kojiro
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175
votes
9 answers

I lost the source code for programs I released as GPL. What to do?

I wrote a software utility I released freely as GPL on a separate machine some ten years ago. But the machine I wrote it on is lost, and I can't find the source code on any of my backups. I am still searching for it. Two people have contacted me…
QuantumDot
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132
votes
6 answers

How can free and open source projects be monetized?

Many open source projects I see involve having dedicated servers, as well as the expensive infrastructure that powers it. Many employ developers to work on the software full or part time. What are the common ways that free and open source projects…
Unihedron
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128
votes
5 answers

How can a "crayon" license be a problem?

Bruce Perens (co-founder of OSI) has coined the term "crayon license": I've been calling these "crayon licenses", taking a line from an old Monty Python sketch about a dog license with the word "dog" crossed out and "cat" written in, in…
Free Radical
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107
votes
5 answers

Can I use GPL libraries in a closed source project if only the output is distributed?

If I create a closed source application which uses some GPL licensed libraries but don't actually distribute the software, only its output, can I keep the software closed sourced? Specifically, I am talking about a biological data analysis pipeline.…
terdon
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95
votes
6 answers

How can a project be relicensed?

I've found out that the license I picked for my project does not quite do what I wanted it do (bad research). Now I want to change the license. Is it as simple as changing the LICENSE.txt in the root?
ratchet freak
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95
votes
8 answers

How to contribute to Open Source as a non-programmer?

I really like a specific open source project and would like to contribute to it. Unfortunately I don't know anything about programming. What are meaningful ways in which a non-programmer can contribute in a meaningful way to an open source project?
Philipp
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90
votes
2 answers

Why is CC BY-SA discouraged for code?

Everybody knows that you shouldn't use a CC BY-SA license on your code. Even the Creative Commons folk recommend against it. What I don't know or understand is why. I can't seem to find any information explaining this. I contribute as both an asker…
RubberDuck
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79
votes
3 answers

If I change the license of my project, can someone use the old license by navigating through Git history?

I am creating an open-source library in JavaScript and using Git to control versions and history. I have several commits in which the LICENSE file is X (for example, MIT), but I would like to change that to Y (for example, Apache-2.0). All commits…
Pedro A
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76
votes
4 answers

How does GitHub's "forking right" cope with an "All rights reserved" project?

The GitHub FAQ states (emphasis mine): You're under no obligation to choose a license. It's your right not to include one with your code or project, but please be aware of the implications. Generally speaking, the absence of a license means…
o0'.
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70
votes
4 answers

Can I license my project with an open-source license but disallow commercial use?

I'd like to make my project open-source. Is there a free/open-source license that lets me do that, but disallows anyone receiving my project to use it for commercial purposes or monetary gain? In a similar vein, what if I find a project that says…
ArtOfCode
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69
votes
5 answers

Is Microsoft VS Code really open source?

I have been using MS VS Code since a while now and I am I really loving it. Although the other day I was having a discussion regarding editors with my mentor where he pointed to me this. It's mentioned in the product license. SCOPE OF LICENSE. The…
rahil471
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65
votes
2 answers

Relicensing content under CC-BY-SA

I have compiled a body of work from numerous contributors, who all licensed their individual works to me under CC-BY-SA version 3. Can I now instead redistribute their work under CC-BY-SA version 4?
Prof. Falken
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64
votes
3 answers

How can I determine if two open source licenses are compatible with each other?

Given two open source projects, each with different licenses, are there metrics or resources I can use to determine if it is legitimate to copy code from one of the projects to the other?
Sparr
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