Questions tagged [software]
For questions about software in an open-source context; its uses and limitations.
82
questions
3
votes
1answer
65 views
How can I use programming documentation without infringing copyright?
I have a really hard time understanding how can I use copyrighted programming documentation, tutorials, articles, blogs, etc. presented as text or video, without infringing copyright?
I will explain ...
2
votes
0answers
38 views
Licencing a software while working in an enterprise
I work for one of the 4 big consulting companies.
I developed a software on my free time. It gained lot of attention, I was asked to register it as company asset. I guess there are plans to use/sell ...
2
votes
1answer
36 views
Use of GPL licensed code in commercial software
I have created an library (A) that uses several other GPL v2 or v3 licensed libraries (B,C,D) which, I am not the author of. I am only the author of A.
Can I license library A under a GPL or a dual ...
5
votes
2answers
220 views
Copyright holder in R packages
I am developing an R package and distribute it under the GPL-2 license by submitting it to CRAN. According to CRAN's Writing R extensions, i am the author and maintainer of the source code.
The R ...
0
votes
1answer
50 views
Copyright issue of the interface of Windows Notepad [closed]
I'm developing Windows application. It is crypto-functioning notepad.
And its design(UI interface) is almost(approx 90%?) same with Microsoft Windows Notepad.
Differences are only some buttons and ...
1
vote
1answer
38 views
Can I use CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 content in a webview while keeping the app commercial?
I am developing an app that uses material (the material I want to show is a website) which is licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 but I want to place ads in my application. The application has another ...
2
votes
1answer
44 views
How to effectively browse mailing lists
There are many open source projects whose development is officially discussed through mailing lists (the obvious example being the Linux kernel).
Being young and spoiled by nice clean website design,...
3
votes
1answer
58 views
Rebranding existing library under MIT
I bit of background: When I was working in my previous company I came up with an idea to extract all some generic functionality from the different projects and create open source library (MIT) from ...
3
votes
1answer
212 views
Under what license may I take and use screenshots of LibreOffice?
Recently, I have been considering making some screenshots of LibreOffice's applications and putting them on my blog (just as graphical examples for the text). But then, I started to think about what ...
7
votes
1answer
3k views
Is Java (JRE) still free for commercial use?
United States here. I have a client that I would like to build a small suite of Java 8+ applications for to be installed on their office desktops and servers. This requires the Java Runtime ...
7
votes
2answers
164 views
Creative Commons ShareAlike, weak or strong copyleft?
I am wondering whether Creative Commons ShareAlike is a weak or strong copyleft license. That is, does it allow linking with code with under a different license?
0
votes
0answers
83 views
Placement of Licensing in Apple Sample Code - Swift
I was going through a tutorial on Apple/Swift and they show a sample project which they offer users to download. On the Swift file, they show:
/* See LICENSE folder for this sample's licensing ...
1
vote
1answer
104 views
Can I use libgit2 in commercial application?
I want to embed libgit2 in my commercial application (here is license https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2/blob/master/COPYING) . I want to create static libgit2 library, and link it with my commercial ...
27
votes
4answers
8k views
Is it legal to have the “// (c) 2019 John Smith” header in all files when there are hundreds of contributors?
Companies use headers like
// Copyright 2011 The Go Authors.
But countless projects with a single maintainer have
// Copyright 2011 John Smith
even though they have hundreds of contributors, all ...
2
votes
1answer
103 views
Can I use a company's name in my open-source project?
I'm developing a small open-source plugin for a fairly well known CMS, which as far as I can tell has a trademark on the product and company name. It's starting to get a bit of traction, so I'm in the ...
4
votes
1answer
99 views
What does it mean to say two licenses are compatible?
If license A is compatible with license B, does it mean that one can combine code from those two and should be able to release combination under license B?
or
Is it just symmetric like 'A is ...
3
votes
1answer
277 views
What is the license of code found in ObservableHQ?
What is the license of code found in ObservableHQ, for example this one?
I really tried reading The Observable Terms of Service but I couldn't get a conclusive answer by myself.
The following excerpt ...
1
vote
0answers
73 views
How do you manage provenance metadata and licence conditions for the data and software packages you use in your research?
Background: I asked this question to a statistical research audience on CrossValidated but was suggested that here might be more appropriate, so re-posting; keen for any tips!
In spatial analysis (...
2
votes
1answer
132 views
PHP mysqli and pdo drivers licensing
I use PHP language in my application and use these two drivers to connect to MySQL - mysqli and pdo. I know that PHP is licensed under PHP License v3.01, so I can freely use it, but at the same time, ...
1
vote
1answer
137 views
Does Licensing have to be mentioned for MIT/BSD-3 Plugins/Libraries for my Commercial Website?
If I create a commercial website that uses MIT/BSD-3 libraries and plugins, do I have to specifically mention the licences of each plugin/library? If so where do I have to add the same? Are the ...
0
votes
1answer
64 views
What are the libraries Blender is based on for mesh visualization and editing? [closed]
I'd like to make a software on Python with a GUI for 3D visual editing of meshes. That's why I ask the question. I suppose at least one mesh editing library is used. And at least one 3d visualization ...
3
votes
1answer
6k views
Can i use a GPLv2 module in my commercial application?
I am developing a commercial wordpress plugin. There is a form module that i have to develop however, i found one already built under GPL2 here
https://github.com/weDevsOfficial/weforms
All other ...
10
votes
1answer
1k 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 ...
-1
votes
1answer
60 views
A worldwide software todo list [closed]
When someone wants to develop a project but has no idea of what to do, where does he/she go to look for ideas? I guess i.e. github will be part of an answer.
But is there any platform out there with ...
1
vote
1answer
76 views
Getting a company to start discussing open source
I work in a large company which makes use of a lot of open source software and employees a fair number of software developers but does not consider itself to be a software development firm. I believe ...
2
votes
1answer
97 views
False Claims and Open Source
I discovered a chrome extension Adblock ultimate, it claims to be open source on the aforementioned webpage. I see that the app was updated about a year ago. Also, a GitHub page is also mentioned. ...
4
votes
4answers
173 views
What are the good reasons for my company to offer open source code?
I've been thinking for some time now for my company to share code publicly that we use in our projects. Code that is not related to any particular business case, but is useful and often copied from a ...
1
vote
1answer
156 views
What does Google have in return from developing Angular?
The other day I was thinking about Angular when the question arised:
What does Google have in return from developing Angular? The same principle applies of course not only for Google, but jQuery, ...
-2
votes
1answer
68 views
if I include source code with my commercial software, how much will that hurt the height of its sales?
i have an unreleased product i believe to be of great commercial value due to its algorithms. in the future, i intend to do four things in this order:
release the source of the software to customers ...
5
votes
1answer
286 views
Moving project from AGPL to Apache v2 / MIT license
The question in a nutshell
Hi! Together with a team of brilliant engineers we've been building a software project (http://luna-lang.org) for the last two years and now we want to release everything ...
3
votes
2answers
688 views
Can I hide a few lines of code because of security reasons?
I am working on a little project, and I consider making it open source (GPLv3). But there is one little problem:
There are a few lines of code I don't want to show off to the public because of a ...
-1
votes
1answer
44 views
What do I have to consider if I'm publishing software, where parts of it are written with another software under BSD license?
I'm going to publish a software, which tests are written with googletest framework. I've read the googletest license, but I'm not going to publish the source code or any modifications of it, or ...
-3
votes
2answers
182 views
How to prevent users to jump to “premium” plan in a web-app
I want to know how can I prevent users to download the code from Git Hub for example, search in the code for a premium variable or something similar and change it to true, rebuild the project and boom,...
8
votes
1answer
265 views
Licensing code on GitHub in a valid way
I'm currently developing something on GitHub. I would like to keep it open source; however I want to make sure in no way am I liable for any issues, and that my code cannot simply be copied and ...
-1
votes
1answer
179 views
License of Ubuntu MATE for commercial use
I would like to know what to be careful about using Ubuntu for commercial use.
I use Ubuntu MATE (Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS), some packages, and applications I created. I only use my applicaton on my own ...
-2
votes
1answer
60 views
Is this commercial use when using OSS library only in develop environment?
I don't know the definition of "commercial use" very much.
Is this commercial use when using OSS library only in develop environment?
I don't use the OSS library in production environment.
2
votes
1answer
34 views
Including a limited published Java interface in an opensource project?
My context: I live in the Netherlands and I have written Apache 2 licensed software that is used globally.
I have created a UDF (User Defined Function) for a piece of closed source software (https://...
4
votes
1answer
763 views
Open Source projects with encryption keys
I currently have a project which I'm planning in the not too distant future to open source on GitHub.
The question I have is regarding how open source projects are released if they have encryption ...
1
vote
0answers
21 views
Proprietary software pre-installed on the PocketC.H.I.P.?
After reading about the PocketC.H.I.P., I assumed that it comes with FLOSS only, because:
Their page advertises:
Open Source Hardware and Software mean you can do almost anything!
Their FAQ says:
...
5
votes
1answer
111 views
How can you guarantee someone that your open sourced code is what's being used in production?
Let's say you have an app that prides itself on open source technologies and the full codebase of your app being open source is what attracts users.
How can you guarantee your users that your open ...
1
vote
1answer
148 views
Most fitting software license for customized client work?
I am struggling with this question about a GitHub project of mine (MIT license). A client wanted me to customize it in a certain way and sell him the customizations (the customizations do not work ...
7
votes
3answers
215 views
Can a quine be distributed as binary only and be open source?
If the author of a program that outputs its own source code (quine) makes it open source, can others just distribute it as binaries?
Does it matter which popular open source license he used, say GPL ...
11
votes
5answers
263 views
Software licensing - Pre 1970's
From reference, page 4, The official ubuntu book, Eighth edition,
As computer’s became cheaper and more numerous in the late 1970’s, producer’s of software began to see value in the software itself....
4
votes
1answer
1k views
Software: If I bundle built (compiled) GPL 2 licensed software with commercial software package how does it affect my software license?
If I bundle a piece of compiled software (in this case, FFMPEG) which is licensed under GPL 2, with my own commercial software (which is not licensed under any form of open source license), does it ...
7
votes
2answers
651 views
How do Open Source projects manage continuous delivery credentials?
If one has an open source project that is deployed somewhere in the cloud via a continuous delivery pipeline, how can the programmatic credentials needed for the CI/CD to deploy the application ...
2
votes
1answer
1k views
Best open source license to preserve author credit?
We have a few library plugins that we want to open source on GitHub, but we want to preserve the author credit for us when our libraries are used by others.
I see a lot of different open source ...
4
votes
2answers
189 views
An open file format initially created to tie users to a closed program. Would using it over other open formats help the open source community more?
Take the DOCX vs. ODT format for example. They are both open source and assumably have no clear advantage over each other, but DOCX was created to compete with ODT, which had been existed many years ...
1
vote
2answers
262 views
We worked with BSD-license software and modified it and now want to allow others to help us
We use a software (a forum) written in PHP run on a single webserver. We modified the original software itself and applied software around it, e.g. using parts of the origin code in our own code. The ...
4
votes
1answer
134 views
Apache 2.0 Licence
When a product includes a firmware written by my company, and this firmware makes use of an open source product, licenced under Apache 2.0 license, and this product is finally to be sold on a broad ...
4
votes
1answer
144 views
Is installing an old free version legal, if the new version is not free anymore?
Is it legal to install an old version of a software that was free but not anymore?
Version 1 was free, I use it for a year. Version 2 is not free anymore. Can I install (into a new environment) the ...
