62
votes
Accepted
Why is CC BY-SA discouraged for code?
CC's own FAQ addresses the reasons, which I find satisfactory, so I'm just going to reproduce it here and expand on the key points:
Unlike software-specific licenses, CC licenses do not contain ...
- 8,533
32
votes
Accepted
Can I "Override" a licensing policy?
It depends. For Stack Exchange: yes.
When you write something, you own the copyright, and have the right to do whatever you want with it (from a copyright perspective at least).
When you post ...
- 9,006
16
votes
Accepted
As owner of GPL library, can I break the licensing terms?
Yes indeed, as the sole author (copyright owner) of a library, you are not bound by the terms you choose to license it to the general public.
Thus you can use it in your own proprietary programs.
...
- 5,297
15
votes
Is it possible to restrict GNU GPLv3 to non-commercial use only?
The natural interpretation of such a license declaration is that they are dual licensing their work:
You can use and distribute it under the terms of the GPL3, which because it is a copyleft license ...
- 7,556
14
votes
Accepted
Licensing Community Wiki Posts at Stack Exchange
You're conflating features of the Stack Exchange engine, which copyright law doesn't care about, with ownership and licensing.
All user content (i.e. the posts and comments, not the user interface ...
13
votes
Why is CC BY-SA discouraged for code?
TL;DR:
CC-BY-SA is a technically perfect open source license.
CC-BY-SA's use is discouraged because of the "license proliferation" problem.
Going into more detail on the first point, first we need ...
- 2,839
13
votes
Accepted
Possibility of non-commercial ‘open-source’ and attribution based licence
If you want to restrict your software to not be used for commercial purposes, it is not open source.
You can release it under multiple licenses - such as the GPL and a commercial license (where a ...
- 2,100
12
votes
Accepted
License to use for smaller GitHub repos
This might take a while, your question isn't a short one, and it seems to me to have a number of misconceptions in it.
I frequently create programs [...] in other script languages, such as PHP (PHP ...
- 38.8k
11
votes
May someone else apply a license to CC0 material?
Bob can relicense it under any license he wishes.
Taking credit for Alice's work is another thing. In jurisdictions that hold up moral rights, Bob can't. The moral rights cannot be given up by Alice, ...
- 10.8k
11
votes
Accepted
Will a dual license lock me in to a provider?
When you use the open source version, you can ask any 3rd party vendor you consider qualified for support. The original licensor can't prevent anyone from offering advise, and the right to fork gives ...
- 11.3k
11
votes
Can I "Override" a licensing policy?
Yes and no.
You can make a claim like that, but it does not override the site policy, it adds to it. In effect, it means that your code is now dual-licensed under both the CC BY-SA and the Apache ...
- 394
11
votes
Do Stack Exchange’s ToS mean that the user-generated content is double-licensed to them?
Does this sentence just summarize what the consequences are of
licensing (to SE) my content under CC BY-SA 3.0?
Or does this sentence state that I’m licensing (to SE) my content
under a ...
- 5,038
10
votes
Can I apply one license to specific users and another to others?
You can license your intellectual property under different licenses to different people. But when your license follows the definitions of open source and/or free software, the licensees have the right ...
- 11.3k
10
votes
Will a dual license lock me in to a provider?
It does not lock you into a provider. You are free to hire another provider to maintain the open source version for you. So the only "lockin" is the fact that whatever you paid the first vendor is ...
- 3,811
10
votes
What is the most concise unambiguous way to represent dual licensing of a work?
You're correct in your last paragraph at least: the || symbol will mean nothing to people who have no programming knowledge.
If you know that the only people visiting your project will be programmers,...
- 8,770
9
votes
Accepted
Dual license compatibility
No, the two licenses don't have to be compatible.
If you are legally allowed to dual license something, usually because you are the copyright holder, you can pick any two licenses, even if they ...
- 8,533
9
votes
Is it legal to use code from Microsoft Knowledge Base Article in an open source software?
Let me take a practical example with this article on How to recursively search directories by using Visual C# that contains some sizeable code snippets. Is there any indication of what I can do with ...
- 13.9k
8
votes
Accepted
How to license Stack Overflow contributions as permissive as possible?
What's the best license?
To make sure as many people can use your contributions as possible, you should license them as public domain. Anyone can then use your work with no restrictions. However, this ...
- 8,770
8
votes
Accepted
Can software be both MIT licensed and in the public domain?
Firstly, no it's not invalid at all. It's always valid to dual or multi license a product under many licenses, even completely contradictory licenses. When you dual license something the recipients ...
- 7,556
8
votes
Accepted
Clarification: Dual licensed under the MIT or GPL Version 2 licenses
If I decide to sell you a car, I can offer to do so for (say) a thousand pounds, or if I choose I might say to you "You can have my car for either a thousand pounds or your motorcycle in exchange". ...
- 38.8k
7
votes
Can paid-for Open Sourcing be a viable model for a freelancer?
Coming from a background in open-source, your model is not that reliable.
In general, open-source licenses must comply with the open-source definition, in particular sections 5 and 6:
5. No ...
- 373
7
votes
Accepted
How to Audit licensing of old project?
This is going to be long, because changing the license from the GPL to a more permissive license is really complicated for a project that is big, old, and has many contributors.
Which license
An ...
- 33.8k
7
votes
Accepted
What does the Zstandard dual license mean?
Does this mean that I can use the code and just apply the BSD license to it?
Yes, this is means exactly this. This is somewhat redundant since the 3-clause BSD they use is already considered as "...
- 13.9k
7
votes
Accepted
Is License Zero compatible with other open source licenses like GNU, MIT or BSD licenses for example?
You have asked a fairly broad question so I'll discuss a few snippets, and come back to the License Zero at the end.
Restricting users of free software.
I can't help but want to make sure that my ...
- 33.8k
7
votes
Is this restriction of Cheerp community edition in violation of GPLv2?
Having read the original page (and as a side-note it would be helpful if you were to provide links in your questions), what is going on is not a licence violation, but dual licensing.
They say
...
- 38.8k
7
votes
Accepted
How does firefox use proprietory fonts?
Those fonts aren't part of Firefox. They're your computer's system fonts. There's no rule that says open-source programs can't use proprietary resources that happen to be available on the system where ...
7
votes
Does multi-licensing disable "use/run for any purpose" right?
Licences do not inhere in software, they attach to software (or, to be more precise, to the recipients of software) through the act of conveyance.
Which is a complex way of saying that what other ...
- 38.8k
6
votes
May someone else apply a license to CC0 material?
The CC0 license is essentially a public domain dedication. Looking at the license deed, it does not depend on jurisdictions, as it waives all rights normally provided under the copyright law by the ...
- 6,239
6
votes
What is the most concise unambiguous way to represent dual licensing of a work?
If you can spare words and it doesn't have to be language neutral, for example
You may use this work under the terms of either CC-BY-SA, or (at your option) CC-BY-NC
or
Your choice of CC-BY-SA or ...
- 253
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible