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Our project is partly software, and partly 3d models and images. To me, the language of the MIT license, which specifically refers to software, doesn't really seem applicable to the parts that aren't software. For that matter, it seems onerous to talk about including the copyright notice for people who just want to make use of the 3d models and images.

This answer suggests that placing a dual license of MIT and CC-BY on everything is a good solution. Is it really?

GitHub has a standard approach to displaying licenses, and I want to make use of it so the license is easy to find. So it would be really nice to just put both licenses on everything, otherwise I have to split things up by file type or folder, and it gets messy and could make it more troublesome to include the proper license or credit notice in downstream works.

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  • GitHub's license "detection" mechanism does not support multiple licenses. See Licensing a repository. There is a specific list of licenses supported linked to from that page.
    – Brandin
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 12:18
  • "[The linked answer] suggests that placing a dual license of MIT and CC-BY on everything is a good solution." - No, the answer does not say that. It says it is one option; another option is to license everything under MIT. Or to dual license it (i.e. give the users the choice "use everything under MIT", or "take the pictures (for example) and use them under CC-BY)"
    – Brandin
    Commented Jan 8, 2019 at 12:23
  • @Brandin This is true, but as long as the license file is called LICENSE.md, GitHub will add a View License tab to the repo's menu that loads that file. So, you can start with one of the templates they offer and modify it.
    – kim holder
    Commented Jan 9, 2019 at 16:39
  • If you have tried this (with a custom dual license text) and it works well for your project on GitHub, you could describe this procedure as an answer to this question to address the "GitHub friendliness" aspect of your question. Answering your own question is OK too as it may be helpful for others.
    – Brandin
    Commented Jan 10, 2019 at 5:52
  • @Brandin I don't know whether it works well or not - time will tell - but your point is well taken. I'll answer with what we've done.
    – kim holder
    Commented Jan 10, 2019 at 19:26

2 Answers 2

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Dual-licensing under MIT and CC-BY is a workable solution. Both licenses have the same basic goal of permitting reasonably unrestricted use while preserving authorship credit. They differ in the details (CC-BY has a number of clauses that really only apply to creative works, while MIT has clauses that only apply to software), but since you're dual-licensing, an end user can pick whichever of the licenses is a better fit for their needs.

(Note that this can have unexpected effects. For example, someone using your source code as the background for some artwork would be able to do so under the terms of the CC-BY license, rather than needing to figure out how to apply the MIT license to a poster. Conversely, any sequence of bytes is a valid program in some esoteric languages, so you might find some of your images being used under the MIT license.)

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It is possible to make a custom license and still make use of GitHub's template system for licenses. As long as the license is in the root directory of the repository and the file is named LICENSE, Github will add a 'View License' tab to the repository menu that links to that document.

We created a dual license of MIT and CC-BY 4.0 structured as follows:

MIT License / CC-BY 4.0 Dual License

Copyright (c) 2019 Kim Holder

MIT License:

[Standard MIT License text here, plus the following paragraph 
which isn't in the usual GitHub version but is part of the 
original]

*****Except as contained in this notice, the name of Moonwards
shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the 
sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior 
written authorization.*******

CC-BY 4.0 License:

Images, .blend files, and documents may be used under CC-BY 4.0 
International. 
See full information at 
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The full text of this license is in the file CC_BY_LICENSE.txt
A summary of the conditions of the license are as follows:

[Human readable text as shown on the above linked page here.]
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