69
votes
Accepted
Is Microsoft VS Code really open source?
This is explicitly addressed in the Visual Studio Code FAQ:
Why does Visual Studio Code have a different license than the vscode GitHub repository?
To learn why Visual Studio Code, the product, has a ...
- 35.6k
42
votes
Accepted
Is it legal to have the "// (c) 2019 John Smith" header in all files when there are hundreds of contributors?
As far as I am aware, all FLOSS licenses that deal with copyright notices only require the preservation of notices that exist. Each author had the opportunity to add their own name to header when they ...
- 35.6k
23
votes
Accepted
MIT license and "All rights reserved."?
It's correct but unnecessary. It's there for clarity.
When you do some work, the default copyright position is all rights reserved. Nobody can do anything with your work without your express ...
- 9,298
21
votes
Are there any software licenses that allow for everything but changing the license or dual-licensing?
Firstly, you need a copyleft license, so that you can ensure derivatives would be subject to the same license conditions.
Secondly, the license must prevent imposition of additional restrictions that ...
- 2,058
19
votes
Accepted
How to license software that implements a well-documented algorithm, but which does not borrow source from the official library?
Since you have never looked at the source code, and ONLY looked at:
The API
The no-code very high-level description of the synchronization algorithm
then you are free to release your implementation ...
- 2,584
18
votes
Accepted
Forking repos to "back up" in case they are removed?
Oddly enough, I just did this with two repos I wanted to ensure continued access to. So no, it's not a silly idea.
However, remember that you have now committed yourself to monitoring the upstream (...
- 6,917
18
votes
Is Microsoft VS Code really open source?
Thanks to the work of Peter Squicciarini (@pajamaboat), you can now download 100% FLOSS binaries compiled from VSCode's official MIT-licensed repository.
It is called VSCodium as a reference to the ...
- 281
18
votes
Accepted
Author rights on software when using an online IDE
As we have said, and as you know, if the IDE is a piece of software you download and run locally, then generally speaking the IDE's licence has no effect on the licence under which your code can be ...
- 47k
15
votes
Is Microsoft VS Code really open source?
The binaries distributed by Microsoft are non-free. The source code, being released under the MIT license, is free software (or "open-source") as poorly called. If you downloaded and compiled the ...
- 2,518
13
votes
Software licensing - Pre 1970's
Was the software(before 1970's) released with free source?
Well, there was surely software released with and without free source, and lots of machine code software where the distinction was of minor ...
- 393
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 ...
- 47k
11
votes
Software licensing - Pre 1970's
Your question is very unclear and confused, but the simple answer is: before the 1970s, software wasn't copyrightable in the US, so the very idea of "licensing" doesn't apply. You cannot put a ...
- 880
10
votes
Accepted
Is installing an old free version legal, if the new version is not free anymore?
If you were given software under some Foo License, you may copy, distribute, and modify the software under the terms of the Foo License.
If the distributor of that software stops giving out new ...
- 35.6k
10
votes
Forking repos to "back up" in case they are removed?
With the recent demise of Google Code, I've strived to get a lot of popular repositories that I may potentially use, and host copies of them on Github, or on my own personal computer.
I don't really ...
- 6,409
10
votes
Accepted
Can a company license frontend software developed with open source frameworks?
Generally: a license for software tells you what permissions you have in using and distributing said software. If you produce a piece of software that incorporates other software, you have to look at ...
- 10.7k
10
votes
Accepted
AGPL library usage for an internal software
It depends.
It depends on the architecture of your software. If the AGPL-licensed package is just used in an back-end application on a server, and not exposed to 3rd party interaction (through a proxy ...
- 7,054
9
votes
Accepted
Licensing code on GitHub in a valid way
I want to make sure in no way am I liable for any issues, and that my code cannot simply be copied and claimed as someone else's.
You want a license that includes a disclaimer of liability (often in ...
- 35.6k
9
votes
Is Java (JRE) still free for commercial use?
The answer is complicated.
The following only applies to Java SE. (Not Java ME, EE, Oracle databases, etc. Not Android.)
From Java 9 onwards, most Java distros do not come in a JRE only form.
...
- 441
8
votes
Accepted
Is it possible to include a shorter form of a license if the license would be longer than the content licensed?
You can certainly try. Instead of including the entire license, you could have this:
Copyright (c) 2016 Thomas Owens. All rights reserved.
This work is licensed under the terms of the MIT license.
...
- 9,298
8
votes
Accepted
Can a quine be distributed as binary only and be open source?
This is categorically fine under the MIT license (as long as you follow basic attribution and license-preservation requirements), since the MIT license allows you to distribute the work (and modified ...
- 35.6k
8
votes
Accepted
Open Source projects with encryption keys
You should not include keys in your open source project. You should include a file location where your code expects a key, and the user (or an included utility) creates or copies their own unique key ...
- 35.6k
8
votes
Accepted
Can I hide a few lines of code because of security reasons?
You are not generally required[1] to release any secret keys necessary to make an application run. Instead, users can obtain their own key.
However, redacting your source code is not a suitable ...
- 38.6k
8
votes
Is Java (JRE) still free for commercial use?
There're several different JRE available with different licenses. Two most prominent are:
OpenJDK is open-source (GPL). You can use it without having to pay for it.
Oracle JRE use different license (...
8
votes
Accepted
Copyright holder in R packages
To quote from Wikipedia:
Copyright does not cover ideas and information themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed.
So the copyright in what you've written covers the creative ...
- 47k
8
votes
Accepted
Are shell scripts considered binaries for licensing purposes?
The parenthetical (and not binary) from the license summary you quote is derived from the end of the second paragraph of the Boost license (emphasis mine):
The copyright notices in the Software and ...
- 35.6k
8
votes
Are shell scripts considered binaries for licensing purposes?
There is a definition in GPL what 'source code' means, and I think this is basically the understanding in the entire industry, so not specific to GPL:
The “source code” for a work means the preferred ...
- 7,054
8
votes
Short Weak Copyleft Software License
Really, the comments above say everything that needs to be said, but I'll pull it together into a single answer.
Firstly, the GPL is complex in its writing because it's a legal document; it's meant to ...
- 47k
7
votes
Forking repos to "back up" in case they are removed?
It's not a silly idea. It's standard practice in open source. A simple example is Linux:
Debian maintains a fork of the Linux kernel
Ubuntu forks the Debian kernel
Linux Mint forks the Ubuntu kernel
...
- 739
7
votes
Examples of companies undercutting smaller companies using FOSS?
Plausible, an open source alternative to Google analytics, released a blog post detailing their move from MIT licensing to the AGPL (Affero GNU Public License).
In it, they have the following claim:
...
- 452
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible