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Hi everybody,

This is not a call for another debate about free vs. proprietary or permissive vs. copyleft. I already decided that I don't want my code included in proprietary software, so a strong copyleft license is the choice for me. The question is: what license exactly.

Looking on the web (including this forum) I found that the GPL is probably the best choice, but it is such a huge amount of text and all this legal stuff makes my head buzz. So I decided to write my own:

Hobbes' Hobby Operating System
Copyright (c) 2010 by Roel <[email protected]>

STRONG COPYLEFT LICENSE. This program is free software: permission to use, study, copy, redistribute, modify and/or distribute modified and derivative works under the same or equivalent terms and conditions.

THIS PROGRAM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY.

What do you think, is this text good enough, or should I go for an existing license like the GPL?

Roel

Edit: fixed typo.

Hi,

I don't think that's clear enough, although anything I say comes with a strong "IANAL" attached to it.

Firstly, from the point of view of good English, you need "Permission is granted..." not just "Permission...". The second part, IMO, would look better as "provided that the modified version prominently displays this notice. Any redistributed version of this software or its derivatives must be made under the same licence terms..." or somrthing similar.

All this is a little academic though:
1. For the wording to stand up in a court in all jurisdictions, you need legal advice.
2. The GPL is widely known, tried and tested. You are better off using that, even if it makes your head spin. Really.
3. Supposing someone from a big company pays you the compliment of thinking your code is so good they want to copy it. Can you afford to take them to court?

Hobbes wrote:This is not a call for another debate about free vs. proprietary of permissive vs. copyleft.

Cheers,
Adam

AJ, thanks for the advice.

I don't seriously expect any major company to use my code. This is just a hobby project and any violation will most likely go unchallenged, probably even unnoticed. And because it's just a hobby project, I don't want to spend too much time on the legal stuff, so no legal advice for me.

Maybe the easiest is to use the GPL as you suggested. Then we can quickly close this thread and get back to programming.

The GPL has a widely accepted intention: If you share, share everything, no profits. The rest of the document is essentially the legalese version of the case described in the GPL's preamble.

The advantage of the GPL is also, at least in local law, that you can use the intentioned use to cover for potential holes in the license text. The reverse holds too: you don't use the GPL, then your intentions can be assumed not to be the same as those of the GPL.

Bottom line: Do not invent licenses without having a lawyer.

Combuster wrote:Bottom line: Do not invent licenses without having a lawyer.

You are right, I should stick to programming. I prefer the complete source code of the Linux kernel over the GPL.

There seem to be not that many strong copyleft licenses. There are the GPL, CeCILL and EUPL, and it appears that the EUPL is not that strong. That leaves CeCILL and GPL, and I don't speak French...

I took some remarks on the GPL to private message, as Hobbes expressed his wish not to discuss his basic decision for a strong copyleft license. After a short exchange, he told me to feel free to attach them to this thread nevertheless.

I do not discourage people from using the GPL on general terms; but there are some strings attached to that decision that one should be aware of, so here goes.

You are the copyright holder, i.e. it is your right to change the license of your software in future releases (re-licensing). Even if you currently don't consider that option, it could come in handy at a later point of time - think about the MySQL or ReiserFS models, which generate income to further the OpenSource development of the projects.

If you release your software under GPL, and accept other people's contribution to your software under GPL terms, the option to re-license your software is taken away from you, unless: you got, in writing, a statement by the contributor that he waives his copyright on the contribution to you (or explicitly allows you to re-license the software). Note that waiving your copyright, while perfectly acceptable in the US, is not allowed everywhere. German contributors, for example, cannot legally waive their copyright!

The other potential problem is that of include files. If you place your project - which is, I assume, your OS project - under GPL, you have to make very sure that any include or linker files are not placed under GPL, either expressed or implied by being considered part / derivative of your OS project. You will need some other, non-"infectuous" license here. LGPL would be an option for header files, but would be unwieldly for linker files. BSD or PD would be better. The reason is quite simple - if your include / linker files are GPL, then it would be legally impossible to use any other license than GPL for user-space software destined to run on your OS. Because, yes, using GPL header files means your software falls under GPL...

Just my 0.02$.

Hi Solar,
Thanks for being so conscientious. I think your remarks are very relevant to the discussion.

My OS is a one man project and will most likely stay that way. However I do not wish to restrict people writing user software for it. I may also port existing software, which may have a different license.

So it is best to release the OS itself under the GPL and some kind of SDK under a permissive license.

Thanks everybody for your replies.

Roel

Solar wrote:Note that waiving your copyright, while perfectly acceptable in the US, is not allowed everywhere. German contributors, for example, cannot legally waive their copyright!

How then have you, or other people, been able to make whole "public domain" code anywhere, and still working in it?

How about "public domain" code originated from countries with very weak or no specific regulations or legal "interest" (and thus no restriction) in public domain, or a place like China where it is supposed that what it takes to get something done is done even if somebody considers it as "piracy" of any kind, but in the end it proves to be a learning stage from which new, original and even superior products are conceived?

And what about some individuals that would claim other's work to be theirs, or public domain code being licensed as GPL by a third party, or vice-versa? I personally would find that rather irrelevant. I am sure there is already a lot of functionally equivalent source code under different licenses, such that, as "open source" initiatives and codebase become stronger and more complete than closed solutions, it becomes less and less of a worry to make something public domain, as there's already plenty of available working code everywhere to choose, and most importantly, the actual algorithms waiting to be implemented (these licences are for the actual source code, NOT for the algorithms after all, or am I wrong? Otherwise it would be a sort of a patent or a right to use an algorithm under one license only, and would greatly limit true software freedom, and would be like trying to limit the use of something that is taught "commonly"), and anyway one isn't going to expect producing billions of lines of code on their own as to be the center of resources and attention.

In short, I think that everyone uses a license that best fits their expectatives, it usually is GPL or commerical, or maybe more BSD-like, and there is a wide margin on the things that could be considered "generic" knowledge or methods and thus there should be little gain for trying to protect those (they are already "common" and known things used frequently by anyone; it would be more of a way of making notice how hard could have been for one as individual to produce something that another "industry professional" team makes rather "easily" and to try to protect it at the same time of being able to publish it). There will always be a way and a place to profit from something, and will always be something to be done, anyway.

Combuster wrote:The GPL has a widely accepted intention: If you share, share everything, no profits.

I know that it's often repeated, but to the best of my knowledge nothing in the GPL forbids making profit. It's only about enabling those who get (buy) the software to freely modify and redistribute it.

In general, the author says something like "I place this work in the public domain. In jurisdictions where I can't do that, I offer it for free use with no warranty".

One of the reasons why I prefer to just chuck my stuff out under the X11 license (Or keep it closed source); the GPL and LGPL tend to just create legal quagmires and costs with no benefits.

There is a reason that those licenses are so long...

"STRONG COPYLEFT LICENSE" - This is ambiguous at best, and meaningless at worst. If I were a lawyer, I'd argue this is the license's title.

"free software" - Put that in front of non-programmers/lawyers and they are most likely to interpret it as cost, not liberty.

No warranty, but what about damages due to use of your software?

IANAL, but I advise you use the GPLv2 (without the updated license part) or GPLv3 iff you want to use a strong copyleft license.

Owen wrote:

~ wrote:

Solar wrote:Note that waiving your copyright, while perfectly acceptable in the US, is not allowed everywhere. German contributors, for example, cannot legally waive their copyright!

How then have you, or other people, been able to make whole "public domain" code anywhere, and still working in it?

In general, the author says something like "I place this work in the public domain. In jurisdictions where I can't do that, I offer it for free use with no warranty".

+1.

The license I use for the PDCLib is here.

This is slowly turning into the debate I was trying to avoid. That's okay, I already got my answer. However, I would like to point out that I'm not prohibiting commercial use, and AFAIK the GPL is not either. There's nothing wrong with making money. I do think there's something wrong with our copyright laws, but that's a compeletely different question.

And to anyone who is not a lawyer, thanks for the advice anyway!