I am the author of a open source library for websites that is licensed under LGPL. To make this library easy to use for non-developers I plan to create a simple to use UI-component based on the library which is free, but not open source. To make the difference between the two parts clear:
- My library can read and render particular file formats in the browser.
- My component is a visual control that can be used by end-users easily. It consists of a special layout, a menu, settings that can be adjusted, a toolbar and the most important thing for me a logo with the product name. Clicking on the logo will show a small about box containing further attribution as required by licenses (name of the component, link to the component website, LGPL info, CC logo etc).
My case is comparable with a PDF library. The library for rendering PDFs is open source, but the full-blown PDF viewer component is only freeware under CC.
Since open source licenses tend to allow rebranding and removal of logos I plan to release this component as "freeware" under a CreativeCommons license. People should be allowed to use and redistribute the component but do not change it by modifying the source code or removing the logo and about box.
I planed to use Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International for my component but the ShareAlike part does not directly prohibit the removal of my logo as long as the attribution is done appropriately. Am I safe with this license or do I need to go for a Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International? Without derivatives there would not be the possibility to create a version which does not contain the logo.