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Open Source Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [license-recommendation]

For questions asking the community to recommend a particular license that meets criteria provided by the future licensor. Any question that seeks to have an open license is allowed, even if the criteria would render it impossible. Questions that ask for proprietary licenses explicitly are off-topic.

License Recommendations are a unique genre of question where the community is asked to recommend a license that suits the author/licensor best depending on the criteria they provide.

More information on effectively writing a license recommendation can effectively be found at the community meta post: How do I ask for a license recommendation?

351 questions
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Should I use the WTFPL for my FLOSS project?

I am looking for a free, permissive license for a small project, providing as few restrictions as possible on the use of my code. Somebody recommended the WTFPL. I want my project to be freely shared, but ... ... beside that, my concerns are: I…
Free Radical
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Are there any existing licenses for a limited proprietary period, going open source in the future?

I'm interested in a license that says something like "After the 1st of January 2020, you may distribute this work under the terms of the GPL v3" (or some other open source license). I'm interested in developing software products and keeping a…
Ben
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8
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2 answers

License for code snippets on programmers community

I'm part of a programmers community over the internet. I've been struggling with the code that's shared over the site because it's licensed under the CC BY-SA. I'd love to accomplish with the law and the "spirit" of the terms of use of the…
Hacktivista
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1 answer

License that keeps a library open, but also allows use in proprietary applications?

I wrote a C++ library (that compiles to a dll that can be called in C#). I would like it so that the library itself can never become proprietary but can be used in proprietary applications. If the proprietor makes any changes to the library code…
OmniOwl
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7
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4 answers

Which FSF- or OSI-approved licenses limit corporate usage in spirit, but not in letter?

A common desire in the Free and Open-Source Software world is to release some code in a way that approximates two ideals: The software is in the public domain and its techniques are common knowledge The software is unusable for corporate…
Corbin
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7
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2 answers

What kind of license for a small code

I am looking for a license for a small project. As a mathematician with my collaborators we created some C code that allows one to simulate some equations. This code is pretty simple but allows for plenty of flexibility. It contains 5 files and more…
EGANTHIN
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7
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1 answer

Open source licensing with extra restriction clause

I know the title is a bit misleading, I guess it might not be possible to release software as open source with this restriction, so the question is how I should license the following scenario: I want to release one or more software tools (SDK etc)…
henit
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6
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3 answers

Can I give the software gratis but charge for the source (and still be FOSS)?

A friend and I developed a software which we would like to be free as in freedom. We would like our software to be available to anyone for no money, but we would like to sell the source code to those interested in. My goal then is : Anyone has…
Kii
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6
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3 answers

Opening the source of my project so others can learn

I've been working on a side project for fun that I originally wanted to release and commercialize. I've realized recently that while I think my work is great and would be fun to share I am not ready to commit to working on it full-time. I'm afraid…
PW Kad
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6
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1 answer

Strong open-source license that forbids limiting innovation

I am looking for an open source license that strictly matches the following criteria, could anyone suggest any? Must: Rename the project Disclose the source Include the original license (also cannot choose any later version of…
Anm
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5
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What license permits everything but gives credit?

So I have been looking for a while for a License which permits basically everything but gives me credit for the original work, I have had a look at the ISC, BSM, zLib and GPL license but am not sure if I understand them correctly. In short I want a…
J Tanzanite
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5
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Licence that says the original author must be given credit, but is otherwise mostly free

I'm not a native English speaker and licenses are difficult to understand for me. I'm looking for a license that requires any people who use the code covered under the license to say "this code came from lwl59438cuoly" or some variation of that…
lwl59438cuoly
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4
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License that requires inclusion of a documentation file?

Someone came to me with this request, and I couldn't come up with a license that satisfies it. We found a workaround, but I think the author's request represents a realistic requirement, so would still like to find an appropriate license. Question:…
Josh Berkus
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4
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An even lesser LGPL-like license that allows static linking

Is there a weak copyleft license, that: allows you to distribute the sources, as long as they are under the same license allows you to do pretty much what you want if you do not distribute the sources The main problem I have with the LGPL is that…
GSsfl
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License to enforce open source on derivative work from AI training such as GitHub Copilot or OpenAI Codex?

New technologies like GitHub Copilot or OpenAI Codex use public code to train their models to generate code. Is there a license to enforce open source upon output trained from public code? Is there a new license in the works? I don't want to…
PromiseByte
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