Questions tagged [multi-licensing]
Works can be released under two (or more) licenses, which may or may not be compatible, giving recipients the choice of which terms they will abide by
106 questions
92
votes
2
answers
21k
views
Why is CC BY-SA discouraged for code?
Everybody knows that you shouldn't use a CC BY-SA license on your code. Even the Creative Commons folk recommend against it. What I don't know or understand is why. I can't seem to find any ...
40
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Can I "Override" a licensing policy?
On many sites, especially Stack Overflow, I can't help but notice such amazing code snippets. However, they come with a "catch" designed by the author.
With user contributions being licensed with the ...
26
votes
1
answer
783
views
Do Stack Exchange’s ToS mean that the user-generated content is double-licensed to them?
In the ToS of Stack Exchange sites, under the section Subscriber Content, the first sentence states that my submitted content is licensed (to Stack Exchange) under CC BY-SA 3.0:
You agree that all ...
21
votes
2
answers
395
views
Will a dual license lock me in to a provider?
I want to use open source software for my business, and it is dual licensed. If I choose the paid license which provides support for any changes we require, will this mean that we are unable to change ...
18
votes
5
answers
2k
views
May someone else apply a license to CC0 material?
Alice licensed her work under CC0 1.0.
May Bob take Alice’s work and publish it under another Creative Commons license (e.g., CC BY-SA)?
If yes, may Bob publish it under his own name (i.e., not ...
15
votes
4
answers
222
views
What is the most concise unambiguous way to represent dual licensing of a work?
I publish photos under multiple Creative Commons licenses and often want to indicate the licensing in a short caption or comment on the photo online or in print. If one of them is dual licensed, how ...
15
votes
3
answers
269
views
Can paid-for Open Sourcing be a viable model for a freelancer?
Open sourcing doesn't necessarily mean that you give away your source code for free.
I am wondering about the business model where your code is made public, free for personal/hobby use, but with a ...
12
votes
1
answer
2k
views
As owner of GPL library, can I break the licensing terms?
As far as I understand, choosing GPL licence for library does not permits use of it in proprietary programs as opposed to LGPL.
So releasing my library (or code classes), I'm forcing people to use ...
11
votes
3
answers
3k
views
What is the meaning of two licenses in a maven pom?
Maven allows several licenses in its license block e.g.
<licenses>
<license>
<name>GPL-3.0</name>
</license>
<license>
<name> Beerware</...
11
votes
3
answers
849
views
Can I apply one license to specific users and another to others?
Suppose I am a developer. I am developing a piece of software. I decide I want to make this code open source. But... I only want developers (or people that will be using the code in other projects) to ...
11
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Is it possible to restrict GNU GPLv3 to non-commercial use only?
I've noticed that the jQuery plugin "Fancybox" has a peculiar licensing note in its header:
// Licensed GPLv3 for open source use
// or fancyBox Commercial License for commercial use
//
// http://...
11
votes
1
answer
2k
views
License to use for smaller GitHub repos
I frequently create programs to process my local files in some fashion. About half of them are Bash shell scripts under 100 lines, others may be longer, include multiple files, or even be in other ...
10
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Does reimplementing GPLv2 code in another language create a derivative work that also falls under the GPL?
I am now working with some ~2005 C CLI code, licensed as GPLv2-only. I hope to do the following things:
Port the code to a more recent environment (e.g. port to Ubuntu 22.04) (I only do this to try ...
9
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Can software be both MIT licensed and in the public domain?
docopt.rs is dual-licensed under the MIT and Unlicense.
How can the software be both copyrighted and in the public domain? Is this an example of invalid licensing?
9
votes
2
answers
800
views
Does it make sense to license my content under a more restrictive license if it's licensed CC-BY-SA?
Let's say that I make a post on a Stack Exchange site. That content is owned by me, but I gave the company a perpetual and irrevocable license under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 3.0. As ...
9
votes
4
answers
1k
views
If something is licensed to me under two (Open Source) licences, can I redistribute under only one?
I have modified a particular file (A LaTeX Beamer Template)
The readme says:
The code of the package is dual-license. This means that you can decide which license you wish to use when using the ...
8
votes
3
answers
272
views
Licensing Community Wiki Posts at Stack Exchange
A while back, I ask this question: Can I Override a licensing Policy? I determined that instead of stating a license on a profile page, it dual-licenses the content posted by that user, instead of ...
8
votes
1
answer
689
views
Possibility of non-commercial ‘open-source’ and attribution based licence
I am currently planning to launch an alpha version of the software as a representative of an unregistered company. We (currently I'm the only person on the team) do not have any patents and are not ...
8
votes
1
answer
392
views
Dual license compatibility
Suppose I place work I publish under two licenses.
If the two have conflicting attributes which property should be used.
Can you specify which properties you want two be applied from the two licenses?...
8
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Combining GPL with non-commercial license
I've been a hobbyist programmer for a long time, and only recently have I been writing code I've thought others might benefit from. Here's my conundrum: I'm a big supporter of the GPL, and I ...
8
votes
1
answer
232
views
How to license Stack Overflow contributions as permissive as possible? [duplicate]
Important: this related Meta Stack Exchange post.
Code you post on Stack Overflow is licensed "cc-by-sa 3.0 with attribution required". Now this may pose problems for people wanting to use my ...
8
votes
1
answer
238
views
How to Audit licensing of old project?
I manage a project with a very long open source history - Zikula (and https://github.com/zikula/core).
Zikula grew out of PHPNuke and PostNuke. Most of the oldest code is long gone, but some legacy ...
8
votes
2
answers
720
views
Using GPL-ed library from code with more permissive license (MPL-2)
I'm writing a library and a tool on top of it, and I would like to release both under MPL-2. However, the library has an optional dependency, another library which is released under GPL (not LGPL).
I ...
8
votes
2
answers
3k
views
License header for dual-licensed (AGPL or "non-free") source code
For one of my products I plan to move from a commercial-only to a dual licensed license model: GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) or a "non-free" license.
I can imagine two options for the ...
7
votes
2
answers
593
views
Is it legal to use code from Microsoft Knowledge Base Article in an open source software?
In an open-source software project, GPL2 or 3, is it legal to use code snippets from Microsoft Knowledge Base articles - the ones that used to be called something like Q1234567, nowadays called just ...
7
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Can a company offering a dual-license AGPL/paid commercial product require commercial users to purchase a commercial license?
When I was working through a problem I was having with MinIO, I noticed that in a bug report on Github, one of the project owners made this comment to a bug reporter:
Also remember if you are using ...
7
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Can I dual license my code under the AGPL and the CPAL? If so, how?
I'm beginning work on a web application at the moment which ideally I'd like to dual license under the terms of the AGPL and the CPAL.
This would mean that anyone using the code in their own web ...
6
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Dynamically Linking a Proprietary Module to a GPL-Covered Library (C/C++)
Context
Suppose I have two projects called:
Foo
Bar
Goal: The Foo compiles to some sort of dynamic linking library such as a windows .dll and links to project Bar dynamically. And some of the ...
6
votes
2
answers
5k
views
Clarification: Dual licensed under the MIT or GPL Version 2 licenses
I've been reading the differences between these two licenses for a few hours now and it is still quite not clear to me how this duality works. As far as I understood, the MIT license basically gives ...
6
votes
0
answers
227
views
What might be the licence for OpenAI model generated code snippets?
I saw an interesting video on computer-generated code snippets. The model has been trained on thousands of open source GitHub repositories.
In the video, an AI model produced some small code ...
5
votes
2
answers
836
views
Dual license or relicense when the new license is more permissive?
An organization is considering changing the license of an OSS repo on GitHub. For the purposes of this question, assume that organization has the legal rights to change the license.
It is currently ...
5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
What does the Zstandard dual license mean?
I am looking at the Zstandard library and it says that it is dual licensed, BSD and GPLv2. What does it mean? If I use libraries in a non open source program will the license be GPL or BSD?
In the ...
5
votes
2
answers
346
views
Under what conditions can someone dual licence existing works?
When software is diffused under an open-source licence I imagine that a project becomes the "intellectual property" of the community.
However, I'm not clear about this answer in that an author agrees ...
5
votes
2
answers
257
views
Different OSS license for LaTeX project source and code listings
I am currently writing a technical document with various code listings and diagrams.
I would like to release the actual text under the GNU-FDL license, while keeping the code listings under GNU-GPL V3....
5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Is license compatibility a partial order?
When we say that some license X is (one-way) compatible with another license Y, I gather that we often intend for compatibility to be transitive; that is, given some other license W which is ...
5
votes
1
answer
1k
views
GPL with license exception for iOS?
I'd really like to use the GPL license for my cross-platform mobile app. I want to publish on the iOS AppStore, the terms of which indirectly prohibit the GPL from being used.
What's the best way to ...
5
votes
2
answers
275
views
Licence for open-source code which is part of proprietary code?
I've a proprietary program which is using OOP classes which I want to publish as FOSS (only the classes).
Which FOSS compatible license I can choose for the classes which will work with my ...
5
votes
1
answer
551
views
Does using an AGPLv3-licensed library prevent me from dual-licensing my own source code?
I wrote some software (a simple command-line utility) and released the source code under the following zlib-style open source license:
Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any ...
4
votes
2
answers
518
views
Is License Zero compatible with other open source licenses like GNU, MIT or BSD licenses for example?
I am currently developing a small open source project and would like to make sure I got the licensing right. I am pretty new to the open source model. I have benefited from it on a personal level for ...
4
votes
2
answers
363
views
License similar to GPL, but allowing to incorporate into the commercial version
Continuing this question:
I want a license L which is generally like GPL, but allows us to do the following:
License our software under both L and a commercial license.
Require that every patch (or ...
4
votes
2
answers
192
views
Do anything with this free beer except generate revenue, for that you'll need to purchase an additional beer license?
Background
I'm working on a talk, complete with an accompanying resource pack and website.
I've never released anything I believe to be of some actual significant monetary value to anyone else before ...
4
votes
2
answers
884
views
Can my thesis LaTeX source files contents be under GPL v3?
I want to release all the LaTeX source files (*.tex), when I publish my thesis. I do
not want to just release the PDF. So everybody can build my thesis with a LaTeX compiler from its source code. Can ...
4
votes
2
answers
273
views
Commercial AGPL application
I'm developing an application using iText. iText, unless a commercial license is purchased, forces you to abide by the AGPL. My plan is to sell commercial pre-compiled copies of my software at a small ...
4
votes
2
answers
104
views
How to license a literate program?
A literate program is a set of of source files each containing a mix of documentation (e.g. as Latex 'code') and code (e.g. as C++ code -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming). From ...
4
votes
1
answer
1k
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 ...
4
votes
2
answers
276
views
What is the way to handle a project that is a mix of software and non-software items?
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 ...
4
votes
1
answer
175
views
Licensing under "version X or later"
Is it a GPL-only thing or can I use this formulation with any license, like "MPL 2 or later"?
Does it mean that in case versions 1, 2 & 3 of license are available, "version 1 or later" effectively ...
4
votes
2
answers
131
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 ...
4
votes
1
answer
159
views
What is the point of dual licensing a library under BSD-3-Clause and GPL?
While reviewing our libraries I stumbled over the zstd implementation (https://github.com/facebook/zstd/blob/dev/README.md).
It (and some of its derivatives) is dual licenses under a BSD-3-Clause and ...
4
votes
2
answers
388
views
How to license programming assignments permissively, while preventing solutions from being published?
I have created a few practical programming assignments for a bachelor's course in computer science, which I'm quite proud of. I'd love for my work to be used anywhere, and for any future teachers or ...