Questions tagged [licensing]
Licensing refers to applying a license to an area of software. Only use this tag if your question concerns the application of a license to an area of interest. If your question concerns a specific license, use the tag that corresponds to your license. For more general questions, use this tag.
2
votes
1answer
60 views
Licensing LGPL software commercially
We have a mobile app software and we distribute it with LGPL v3. It uses other 2 components licensed under LGPL-v3 and MIT. For our own code, we are have the full ownership (i.e. nobody else have made ...
0
votes
0answers
20 views
Licensing LGPL software commercially [duplicate]
We have a mobile app software and we distribute it with LGPL v3. It uses other 2 components licensed under LGPL-v3 and MIT. For our own code, we are have the full ownership (i.e. nobody else have made ...
-2
votes
1answer
97 views
Practical steps to licence Free software and Open Source Projects [closed]
Several discussions have supported the subject of a software license and the majority are limited to offer explanations or definitions (GNU GPL, EULA, BSD License ... etc) without addressing the ...
2
votes
2answers
235 views
IPC between open-source and closed-source applications
We have two applications developed by two teams. One is open-source under GPL, another closed-source without any possibility to open the code.
Also there's a requirement to implement some kind of API ...
0
votes
2answers
83 views
Implications of using GPL licenced code only during testing
Let's say I'm working on a software library in which certain unit tests rely on GPL licensed code but the code that a user of this library would install on their system does not interact with GPL ...
4
votes
1answer
103 views
How do I detect an AGPL violation?
For client side code, even if it is obfuscated or is just a binary, I can imagine there might be ways of doing this, but if I have some server-side AGPL licensed code, how am I supposed to know that ...
3
votes
3answers
467 views
Open source software license, granting co authorship in scientific publications? [closed]
I'm a PhD candidate and part of my research project involves writing scientific software. I use that code to verify theoretical results and also as a proof of feasibility. It is usually not necessary ...
3
votes
1answer
47 views
Can I use bits of source from another library in an original work without having to worry about license issues?
I've been writing a docking framework in JavaFX. This is a new library with original work. However, I have been reading the source code of a few other open source docking projects to get some hints ...
4
votes
1answer
59 views
Why it is sufficient to include only copyright without permission notice when using React library in your project?
As far as I understand if you want to use React.js library you should comply with MIT license by adding its copyright and permission notice before the library is included to the source code (to the ...
0
votes
0answers
39 views
GNU GPL based commercial project
I am currently developing a IoT based software which will run on a Raspberry pi and distributed to user(like a product). I also want to place another software on the Raspberry pi which will work in ...
2
votes
2answers
111 views
How to interpret a one line license?
In a certain open source project I'm planning to use, which is a developmental tool, there is no license included in the project, but the readme contains the following lines:
Terms and Conditions
...
4
votes
1answer
54 views
Does a central copyright and license notice cover all the files in a software program?
Some open-source programs have a single copyright and license notice in the README file, while others put a notice in each file in the program.
I prefer the first practice because it makes the code ...
2
votes
2answers
222 views
Can GoJS be included into an open source project?
Context: GoJS is not open source, its license stating in particular that modification is forbidden (though the fact that its source code is hosted on GitHub seems to confuse some people).
The ...
1
vote
1answer
31 views
FDL code in GPL repo
I have a repository (GPLv3) full of configuration files that I recently noticed uses some FDL code (FDLv1.3). I have the following questions:
To resolve this issue and keep the code:
Could I re-...
3
votes
1answer
198 views
What is the difference between LGPLv2.1 and LGPLv3?
Below text is cited from https://www1.qt.io/faq/#_Toc_3_6
LGPLv3 is the current version of the GNU Lesser General Public License. LGPLv2.1 is an older version and not recommended by the Free ...
5
votes
1answer
106 views
Proper way of “migrating” MIT-licensed code to Apache 2.0 License
I am building a software which I plan to release with Apache 2.0 License and some components are code based from a repository released with MIT License.
MIT License states: "The above copyright ...
5
votes
2answers
172 views
Is there a good license for a libertarian programmer who's against intellectual property?
I know, I know, you're probably thinking CC0 or WTFPL or something along those lines. But the thing is, the way I see it, people have a right to redistribute anything, even if the author doesn't want ...
6
votes
1answer
70 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=[
...
-2
votes
1answer
64 views
NDAs vs. FOSS Projects
Suppose someone signed an NDA at a company that does X. Generally speaking, does this typically preclude them from working on open-source projects that also do X?
0
votes
0answers
31 views
License for your TreeFrog application
I have come across the TreeFrog framework. While its license is BSD, it still uses qmake to compile as seen in the tutorial. So does TreeFrog's BSD license or Qt's LGPL license apply to the ...
4
votes
1answer
63 views
Do project owners have to comply with their software's license? [duplicate]
Say that I create an open source project with a license X, that grants user the capacity to edit and distribute my code, but under the same license.
Do I, as the owner and copyright holder, have to ...
0
votes
1answer
56 views
Can a proprietary ERP be built from a fork of an open source project?
Can an open-source project be forked and then used to build a proprietary enterprise resource planning app (ERP)?
That is, ERP-A is already built and now I want to build ERP-B. Can I fork ERP-A and ...
3
votes
1answer
54 views
Will distributing my program with virtual box make it GPL?
So I'm wondering if I distribute my application (as an .iso file) with virtualbox portable http://www.vbox.me/ which is licensed under GPLv2, will that make my program also under the GPLv2 license? Or ...
0
votes
1answer
66 views
What license has jai_imageio ? (jai imageio)
Somebody is cleaning up SO and deleting posts (here and here). Instead is should have been moved here but I can't comment / edit / move it, so here is the question:
I know that sun/oracle stopped ...
2
votes
1answer
30 views
Can I have a different license on a product that executes an open source scripting language
I am developing some software very similar to openvas - http://www.openvas.org/ most components of this software are release under the GNU GPL license. To be clear my software will not be directly ...
2
votes
1answer
83 views
Why contribute to Android if it has an Apache license?
Why do commercial firms contribute to Android open source project if they are not bound to. They can build their own version of android and use it with their products under any license. Samsung uses ...
1
vote
1answer
180 views
Using iText library with AGPL license to make application open sourced
I am working on a project to generate a 508 compliant annual PDF Publication from our database using iText 7 java library. This library works great for accessible PDFs. We are in the process of ...
2
votes
1answer
24 views
How to add the name of my organization to a Mozilla Public License?
My organization made a Python module and would like to share it under the Mozilla Public License.
Is there a way to add the name of this organization to the license ?
If I use the license as is, ...
3
votes
1answer
315 views
Copyright notice in the file header (Apache v2 license)
Recently, about 50 top contributors (including myself) decided to fork Swagger Codegen to maintain a community-driven version called "OpenAPI Generator" (https://github.com/OpenAPITools/openapi-...
3
votes
1answer
56 views
Can I add a license to a forked repository? Can I license only my added code?
I would like to fork an existing repository which has no existing license. I would then like to add the GNU GPLv3 license to any code that I write, but it seems as though I cannot apply this license ...
0
votes
0answers
20 views
Can I make the code in a project currently licensed under the MIT license private without involving a contributor? [duplicate]
I licensed an iOS project under MIT license and a friend made one contribution, adding a few lines to the README.md. The project has been forked twice.
I would like to make the second version closed ...
5
votes
1answer
102 views
Can I redistribute node.exe in my commercial Application's Installer?
I want to use node.exe and a very simple Javascript that essentially uses only the net module for some functionality in my product. I don't need anything else. I know electron and other frameworks are ...
0
votes
0answers
36 views
Which of Qt license files must we include with our open source (MIT) software?
We are using the LGPL version of Qt 4.8 for some components of our MIT-licensed desktop software (https://appleseedhq.net/).
In my Qt 4.8.7 distribution, I see at least the following license files:
....
2
votes
1answer
57 views
Are we liable for license problems posed by transitive OSS libraries?
We (small team in large organisation, in Germany/EU) have the following situation:
we use OSS libraries within our commercial products, licenses are checked and we are sure that we're complying (LGPL,...
1
vote
1answer
11 views
Are there any licensing restrictions on the Training Center XML file format?
The wikipedia page doesn't give much information on the page. It seems to be only generated by garmin devices but there are numerous open source libraries that can process this file format.
Are ...
3
votes
1answer
53 views
Is declaring something one made as “free software” legally binding?
I used an unfree license, but I made a copy paste mistake, declaring that the licnesed stuff is "free software".
Is that legally binding = does it grant the licensee the three fos freedoms?
Here the ...
1
vote
1answer
331 views
iText 2.1.7 in commercial Project
This question was originally asked on Stack Overflow but since licensing questions are off topic I move it here. So here comes the original question about this open source library:
I want to use the ...
4
votes
1answer
84 views
Relicensing a fork of a GPL project and source code distribution requirements
(Reposted in here because this is the more correct section.)
So the situation is this: I run a project which is a fork of an emulator licensed under GPL v2, my fork respects that and has not ...
0
votes
1answer
37 views
Third-party component licensing obligations, usage and obligations scale
I'm not sure if this question makes sense here although in my point of view it does. Otherwise I would be happy to post it in the right SO.
Scope
I would like to rise a few scenarios concerning ...
0
votes
1answer
67 views
Can I commercialize my product that uses mblock?
I have a question regarding licensing of mblock based products.
The mBlock 5 is a software tool for STEAM education. It is inspired by Scratch 3.0 and supports graphical and text programming. Also, ...
2
votes
1answer
116 views
Using Material Design icons in commercial software
I want to use Material Design icons provided by Google in my web app.
According Apache License I guess I must mention the author.
How should I do it?
a) Write into footer something like: "All icons ...
3
votes
1answer
39 views
How to license or patent an open standard for a GPL program?
I am starting an open source project that consist of two parts: a program for reading, writing, modifying, and displaying information from file and a standard for the file. Obviously, this project may ...
3
votes
1answer
59 views
Opensource license ownership and collaboration
If a person releases their source under some Open source license. And later if another person contributes to the project through a pull request (in Github). Then, does the contributor gets a say if ...
4
votes
3answers
172 views
Redistributing MSVC runtime components with GPL application
A library I used in my native Visual C++ application was GPLv3-licensed; I found the GPL acceptable, and thus I was planning to make my application GPL-licensed as well. The application depends on ...
0
votes
1answer
40 views
Can one get all copyrights on derivative software if one add enough new code?
According to german law, can one get all copyrights on software derivative if one added enough new code?
if yes, how is the "percentage of new code" measured?
if yes, are there such paragraphs in ...
1
vote
1answer
48 views
OSS licensing for GitHub projects
If I made some contributions to a repository on GitHub and then decided to delete the source code that I contributed, are other users of the repository still allowed to use that particular source code?...
0
votes
2answers
78 views
I modified and used GPL2 Code in my Apache 2 Open Source Project - can my Project be used commercially, closed source?
I wrote a library in Java for Bcrypt. Bcrypt's OpenBSD implementation uses a exotic flavour of the standard RFC Base64 encoding. Since there are no standard implementations for this, I modified (and ...
1
vote
1answer
159 views
Can I use GPL v3 licensed software in a commercial application that is accessed through web APIs?
A product that I'm developing uses a component that is licensed under GPL v3.
I do not want to redistribute the software: I plan to have a paid service where users can access my software through ...
0
votes
0answers
14 views
can I use CC BY-SA 3.0 media (pictures) in a software partly licensed under a non-derivative license?
I am working on a software wich contains graphics i didn't make that are licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
since the software contains other parts I didn't make, I want to put it under two different ...
4
votes
1answer
677 views
Is dual licensing a software that contains gpl programs possible?
I have seen that there is a question about gpl and dual licensing, but I know copyleft can behave different depending on the shape of the software.
so here's my question:
I have a package of lua ...
