You’ll be able to release the project under a different license if you ever need to. It’s short, easily understood, and allows anyone to do anything so long as they keep a copy of the license, including your copyright notice. It’s hard to go wrong with the MIT License if you’re starting with a blank slate. “Everything a government attorney needs to know about open source software licensing” Which open source license is appropriate for my project? Unless absolutely required, avoid custom, modified, or non-standard terms, which will serve as a barrier to downstream use of the agency code. When you create a new project on GitHub, you’ll be asked to add a license.Ī standardized license serves as a proxy for those without legal training to know precisely what they can and can’t do with the software. You can find the full text of these licenses, and instructions on how to use them, on. MIT, Apache 2.0, and GPLv3 are popular open source licenses, but there are other options to choose from. You can copy-paste an existing license directly into your project. You’re in luck, because today, open source licenses are standardized and easy to use. Just give me the TL DR on what I need to protect my project. For example, someone cannot legally use any part of your GitHub project in their code, even if it’s public, unless you explicitly give them the right to do so. If you want others to use, distribute, modify, or contribute back to your project, you need to include an open source license. Public projects are covered by GitHub’s Terms of Service, which allows others to view and fork your project, but your work otherwise comes with no permissions. Making your GitHub project public is not the same as licensing your project. When you create a new project on GitHub, you have the option to make the repository private or public. Your project’s community, or your employer’s policies, may also require your project to use specific open source licenses. That means nobody – not even you – can use, copy, distribute, or modify their contributions.įinally, your project may have dependencies with license requirements that you weren’t aware of. Without a license or other agreement in place, any contributions are exclusively owned by their authors. These rules also apply when someone contributes to your project. But because the legal default is still exclusive copyright, you need to explicitly give these permissions with a license. Open source is an unusual circumstance, however, because the author expects that others will use, modify, and share the work. In general, that means nobody else can use, copy, distribute, or modify your work without being at risk of take-downs, shake-downs, or litigation. That is, the law assumes that as the author of your work, you have a say in what others can do with it. Glad you asked! When you make a creative work (such as writing, graphics, or code), that work is under exclusive copyright by default. (Before you dig in, be sure to read our disclaimer.) Why do people care so much about the legal side of open source? Thankfully, with this guide you don’t have to start from scratch. It can also mean a bunch of legal things you didn’t know you had to worry about. Sharing your creative work with the world can be an exciting and rewarding experience. Understanding the legal implications of open source
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