[SOLVED] Licensing your software...

[blackcell]

If you wanted to license something you made before releasing it to the web, how would you do that? Like with a GPL license?

[revraz]

Did you search at all for it?

 

First thing that came up on Google

 

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

[blackcell]

Jesus christ forums are turning into communist chop-your-hands-off-and-scold-you-for-not-finding-a-hit-on-google community aren't they? Why don't you read this article and nix the fact that I am talking to a moderator because your not one: http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,211557.msg963540.html#msg963540

 

[revraz]

And that has what to do with learning how to be self sufficient?

 

I could hold your hand for the rest of the day if you like.

[neylitalo]

Software licensing is a tricky issue, and something that shouldn't be taken too lightly. The GPL is indeed one way to license your software, but there are oodles of other ways to license. The basic ways to license software, in order of my favorite to least favorite as a consumer, are copyleft, permissive, and proprietary.

 

GPL falls into the copyleft category - the idea behind copyleft is to declare a set of freedoms that the users have, but also to guarantee and extend those freedoms to every single user of the software.

 

Licenses like BSD, MIT/X11, and Apache are permissive. Permissive licenses are written with the intent that the users of the software can do whatever they want with it. There is one thing that users of BSD or MIT licensed software cannot do: Re-distribute the software under a different license. (Users of original-BSD licensed software also may not use the name of the original copyright holders in promotions for software derived from the original.) The Apache license is extremely permissive - it even allows for re-licensing of software, as long as you include a notice with your software to inform users that you used Apache code in your product. Permissive licensing has the distinct drawback of not guaranteeing freedoms to all users.

 

And, naturally, proprietary licenses (commonly called End User License Agreements) are the most restrictive. One nice side-effect of proprietary licensing is that you can make more money with it, but you also lose a lot of advantages that come with copyleft or permissive licensing.

 

I wrote a little article on this, a while back - you can read it here if you're interested.

[blackcell]

Thank you neylitalo. That was the main reason I wanted some clarification is because I had heard it is a really touchy thing and all consideration should be given as to which license.

 

Raverez, thanks for wasting board space.