Questions tagged [license-notice]
For questions about the content and placement of license, copyright, and disclaimers
47
questions
61
votes
3
answers
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Should I include license text in a single file or all source files?
Many licenses, such as Apache 2.0, have both a long and a short form. Typically, the long form is included in the repository as a single LICENSE file, and the short form is used in the actual source ...
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29
votes
2
answers
19k
views
Where to put license for MIT licensed code on website
I'm a freelance web developer building a site for a client. I found some code I'd like to use on CodePen which uses the MIT License. As far as I understand the license, I can use the code freely on my ...
Tom
8
votes
1
answer
4k
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Apache 2.0 license - NOTICE, CHANGELOG
I have a question about the NOTICE and CHANGELOG files in Apache 2.0 license.
Here is the situation: I based my work on an Apache 2.0 licensed project. I did some minor changes (compared to the ...
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8
votes
2
answers
189
views
Do I have to exclude quotations in the license notice?
I want to publish a blog post under a Creative Commons license (e.g., CC BY-SA 4.0). This post includes several quotations (to the extent allowed by copyright law) from works which are not licensed ...
- 5,380
16
votes
1
answer
944
views
Can I make typographical changes to the MIT license?
If I make some typographical changes to the default MIT license, does it still count as the MIT license?
Example
Copyright (c)© [year], [organisation]
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to ...
- 265
9
votes
1
answer
468
views
How should I re-license the scaffold code for my new application? (it is licensed under MIT)
If you notice the following scaffold starter kit source code is licensed under MIT throughout the code base. Even the configuration file contain a header of MIT licensed by the creator.
Assuming, I ...
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24
votes
1
answer
6k
views
How much is "substantial portion" in MIT licence?
MIT license says:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
How much is that substantial portion?
For ...
- 425
15
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Why does the FSF make this recommendation about ranges of copyright years?
In the document “How to use GNU licenses for your own software”, the FSF says:
For software with several releases over multiple years, it's okay to use a range (“2008-2010”) instead of listing ...
- 303
11
votes
2
answers
17k
views
What is the correct way to add license information to source code?
I have recently released some projects on GitHub and its catching people's attention(I had released earlier too but they were just for learning and didn't carry much weight).
But I think I made a ...
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11
votes
3
answers
5k
views
Does Open Source Software need an EULA to protect the developer?
From Wikipedia, it states that EULA is different from OSSL
Unlike EULAs, free software licenses do not work as contractual extensions to existing legislation. No agreement between parties is ever ...
- 221
10
votes
2
answers
2k
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Who will be the copyright owner of a new file in a forked repository on github?
Let's say there is a MIT Licensed repository on github, then by definition all the files that belongs to the repository is owned by the copyright holder of the repository.
But if I fork the project ...
- 219
8
votes
2
answers
3k
views
How to denote certain files are under a different license?
Example
GPL v3 Project, MIT (ExPat) file/directory.
myproject
├── LICENSE (GPL v3)
├── ...
├── gpl_licensed_file
├── mit_licensed_directory
│ └── mit_file1
└── mit_licensed_file
So If I were ...
- 213
8
votes
1
answer
4k
views
What firebase license should I include in my app?
I am using the library: com.firebase:firebase-client-android:2.4.0 Firebase in my app.
The library belongs this site: Firebase
My doubt is whether I have to include some license from firebase like ...
- 181
7
votes
2
answers
2k
views
What is the appropriate way to include third-party libraries copyright notice and permission notice in my project source code?
I am writing a web app based on react framework and I am using npm package manager. Together with transitive dependencies I have about 800 MIT licensed dependencies. To comply with MIT, do I need to ...
6
votes
2
answers
325
views
Can I move an in-line license to a file?
I am currently using a library that is licensed under MIT.
Each file of the library has a in-line comment containing the standard MIT license text in full length, which is kind of repetitive in my ...
6
votes
2
answers
699
views
Sections 4 and 6 of the Artistic License 2.0
Section 6 states:
(6) You may Distribute a Modified Version in Compiled form without the Source, provided that you comply with Section 4 with respect to the Source of the Modified Version.
But if ...
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6
votes
1
answer
453
views
How should I mark a source file with GPLv2 as a derivative work?
I want to include a file with GPLv2 license in my project (which is also GPL, so there are no worries there). The file starts with a copyright line, and the license information.
I'll be making ...
- 163
3
votes
2
answers
370
views
License notice for BSD and MIT licenses
Should I put the complete text of BSD or MIT license to every file?
For longer licenses like GPL or MPL, there is a license notice. It is relatively short text that says what license is selected for ...
- 285
2
votes
1
answer
227
views
MIT notice in firmware for devices with no user interface
The MIT license says:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.
In case of proprietary software, there is usually ...
- 195
0
votes
0
answers
19
views
What's the license for a Qt based project? [duplicate]
https://www.qt.io/product/features
I work for a company where I'm developing a project based on a number of Qt components. Not using Qt commercial license, after reading here and there about Qt ...
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24
votes
1
answer
2k
views
How to deal with licences after forking a project?
I forked a project with an MIT license on GitHub:
The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright (c) 2012 Some Name
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software ...
- 343
18
votes
2
answers
7k
views
License that requires attribution to end users?
I'm looking for an open source license that requires attribution to end users.
Thus far, I've looked at the MIT license and Apache 2.0. But I am not convinced that they require attribution to end ...
- 283
17
votes
3
answers
7k
views
What if somebody removed my name from MIT license
Case: I developed a software and uploaded it to Github with MIT license.
To apply the license, I created a LICENSE file with MIT license preamble (as mentioned in choosealicense.com)
Somebody cloned(...
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11
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Remove BSD LICENSE file while importing code into GPL project
Can LICENSE file be removed from 3rd party BSD project that is merged with GPLed code? There are license headers in each file, but files will be modified, so BSD license in them will no longer be ...
10
votes
1
answer
638
views
Copyright notice must be regularly updated while the project is active?
I started an open source project in 2013, with the LGPL license. I've been regularly working on it for the last four years. Each file includes the standard copyright notice that include the copyright ...
- 203
9
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Do I need to include the license for all dependencies declared in a setup.py?
Let's say I'm making a library called X, which has a dependency on requests (which is under the Apache 2.0 license). For X's setup.py, I declare the following:
setup(
...
install_requires=[
...
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9
votes
1
answer
652
views
Can I remove some copyright holders from headers and replace them by a generic "and contributors"?
The project I'm involved in currently has headers of the following form:
The X Development Team
Organization A - Organization B - Organization C - Copyright 1999-2018
This file is distributed under ...
- 5,437
8
votes
3
answers
926
views
License violation within git history
What are the consequences of pushing a git repository that has an open-source license violation in its history, but not the current head?
Consider this scenario:
I have a git repository with some ...
- 183
8
votes
1
answer
450
views
Licensed Projects: How many projects are licensed without a file?
I've been searching around a little bit for statistics on how many projects are licensed with a licence file in their repository. I found this article with a graph:
The spike between 2013 and 2014 ...
- 6,309
8
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Do I need to license a Jupyter Notebook that uses a forked AGPL library?
I used an AGPL-licensed library for a data study, and am hoping to release and link to a Jupyter Notebook with my methodology. I was hoping to learn what license, if any, I would need to include with ...
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8
votes
2
answers
4k
views
How to combine multiple LICENSE notes into single file?
What is the exact format to combine multiple LICENSE notes from different projects into a single file?
The specific project is Python binding for OpenCV. The binding itself is MIT licensed, OpenCV is ...
7
votes
2
answers
404
views
How to properly include a license file within an EPUB?
I am currently working on an EPUB project in which I'll embed a font licensed under OFL.
According to the second point in the PERMISSION & CONDITIONS section, the font "may be bundled (...) ...
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6
votes
1
answer
85
views
How do search engines read image licence?
It's easy to search for images published under a creative commons licence in search engines, I just have to fine-tune my search options.
But how do I get my images with their licence on the web ? Is ...
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5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Can I change a LICENSE file text format? [duplicate]
Using a text format utility, (e.g. par) I would like to know if either/both of the following are permitted:
Adjust paragraph width or center/justify text.
Distribute as a .md Markdown file so as to ...
- 213
4
votes
1
answer
758
views
What is the difference between a license, and an EULA when forking a project?
A open software license generally outlines what conditions that a fellow software developer must follow in respect to the original project, be it someone who is plain out of the blue looking at it, ...
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4
votes
3
answers
474
views
Can I force additional notices in my open source project?
Answering a question here put me in a drawback.
In Open Source projects, it's clear that copyright notices shall be retained, especially when they contain copyleft and share alike clauses. However, ...
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4
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Is "license": "MIT" in config enough to be a valid license in a software project?
For my case, I have open source projects in Node JS that use the MIT license for which I have only added "MIT" to the license field in the package.json config file. There are no contents of the ...
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4
votes
2
answers
120
views
JPEG comment to convey Copyleft Multi-Licenced Copyright Notice
This question is related to Copyleft Multi-Licenced Copyright Notice.
I upload pictures on commons.wikimedia.org and I want to facilitate the reuse but I want derivatives stay "libre". Therefore I ...
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3
votes
1
answer
97
views
What must you include in a derived work of an MIT project?
I am very confused about how the MIT license works in detail. In layman's terms, I understand the following:
If you distribute copies of MIT source, then you must include the license, and the rights ...
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3
votes
1
answer
423
views
License notice for embedded device - include operating system and apt packages?
I have to create a license and copyright notice for an embedded device using Raspbian Lite as operating system, running a custom application developed by me. The device is sold as a whole.
I browsed a ...
- 131
3
votes
2
answers
99
views
Copyleft Multi-Licenced Copyright Notice
I want to allow any usage/modification/distribution of my work except with the restriction that my work and derivatives must stay "libre".
Therefore I think the right way is to publish my work under ...
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3
votes
2
answers
689
views
How can I open source a repository on GitHub by using Apache license in only one file?
To license a project in GitHub, can I do it like this:
There are many files like src->Java, res, etc for my Android app
So I want to use Apache license v 2.0 for open sourcing it
So will the ...
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2
votes
1
answer
124
views
Copyrighting open source code using a business name vs as an individual
I'm the only developer working on an open source project (MPL v2.0 license, not sure if it does matter) and I have a single-person LLC I use for some consulting works.
What are the pros and cons of ...
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2
votes
1
answer
248
views
Am I allowed to use these gifs for my game?
I am a game developer and while searching for assets to put in my game I stumbled across this website. I came across this website and the FAQs were not clear on whether or not I can use the assets for ...
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2
votes
2
answers
140
views
How to properly display the Copyright information in the User Interface or product documentation?
In order to fulfill license obligations (in some cases) one must display the copyright information (when not delivering source code).
Should one display (in GUI or IFU) the copyright information of ...
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2
votes
1
answer
116
views
Can i use website domain as author for open source license? [duplicate]
When in the open source licenses is required to indicate the author, can i use simply the domain of the website (not the company name)?
@curiousdannii thanks for point me this other question, but i ...
- 309
1
vote
2
answers
2k
views
Is using the GPLv3 without putting a license notice in each source file OK?
I have published code on GitHub with the following license:
Quantum including:
Main.scala
Enrichment/
package.scala
Graphics/
Canvas.scala
...
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