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Questions tagged [licensing]

Questions about the implementation of software licenses on software.

General questions about open source software licenses should be asked at opensource.stackexchange.com instead. Legal questions about software licenses should be asked at law.stackexchange.com instead.

Licensing questions on Software Engineering are limited to general use-cases of software licenses: any specific questions about the legal enforcement of licenses (like, for example, suing people) is off-topic: consult a lawyer instead.

For questions about open source licenses, opensource.stackexchange.com is often the better place to ask, since their community has specific experts for this topic.

See the licensing faq for more information about whether your question is on topic.

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1339 questions
183
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3 answers

Which SPDX license is equivalent to 'All Rights Reserved'?

I've got a package.json that's expecting a SPDX-approved license acronym, but I can't find one that means 'proprietary commercial license, all rights reserved'. Is there one for non-FOSS, where I want to specify that I want to allow no reuse?
Bryce
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157
votes
8 answers

Do you have to include a license notice with every source file?

I've been looking for various licenses that I can use for an open-source project of mine, but all of the projects that I've seen, with all kinds of licenses, appear to have a giant, obnoxious (in my opinion) notice in each source file that states…
RétroX
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128
votes
4 answers

Can I use MIT licence plugins in my commercial web site?

If yes, what precautions should I take?
Harry Joy
  • 2,197
80
votes
5 answers

Are there pre-made commercial software licenses to choose from?

I currently have an open source project that is licensed under GPLv3. I'd like to dual license it, so I can offer it for commercial use. Are there any resources for choosing or creating a commercial software license?
Sean Fujiwara
  • 919
66
votes
5 answers

Can you change a license once you pick one?

I am working on a product that I don't feel is completely ready but I have a set of users that are very interested in using it now as "alpha" testers. I would like to give them the product now for free as "alpha" testers, but I would like to later…
Adam
  • 1,073
35
votes
3 answers

Best Mechanism for Generating License Keys

What methods / libraries / tools would people suggest for generating license keys (those lovely AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA-AAAAA things you put in when you register software)? Any gotchas to look out for when implementing them? (At the moment I'm…
Jon Hopkins
  • 22,764
33
votes
3 answers

Which is the most permissive open-source license?

Which is the most permissive open-source license available? "Permissive" would be defined as "the minimal requirements about how the software can be redistributed".
thelolcat
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29
votes
4 answers

Is there an idiot's guide to software licensing somewhere?

Basically, my knowledge on the issue is zilch other than the fact that open-source and closed-source exists. I'm a web developer (not a designer in the slightest), so I look online for things like icons. I've always been a big fan of these icons,…
sevenseacat
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29
votes
4 answers

Should I change the name of the WTFPL?

I'm using the WTFPL in my personal projects that I have published on GitHub. Currently I'm using the license verbatim, but I have a suspicion that I shouldn't be leaving the third line: Copyright (C) 2004 Sam Hocevar in there,…
Domenic
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25
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6 answers

Software License: Open Source, but no distribution (for free or for profit)

I wrote a program in PHP. I want people to be able to use the code to learn from and even include bits in their own apps but I also want to maintain the right to sell it and make it clear that others are not to distribute copies either for free or…
wgp
  • 367
23
votes
1 answer

MIT License vs. Creative Commons for images and other assets

Could somebody please resolve a particular licensing confusion for me? I'm always really puzzled by how software licensing works. I want for everyone to be able to use my software with minimal, if any, restrictions and no warranty. So I just use a…
Egor Tensin
  • 499
23
votes
3 answers

How are GPL-compatible licenses like MIT usable in GPL programs without being subject to the copyleft provision?

I'm currently examining the possibilities and implications of linking against a GPL library for an application in a commercial context. From what I've understood of the GPL, as long as the application is used internally there is no obligation to…
Louis Morazzani
  • 331
21
votes
1 answer

Why is the warranty disclaimer section of a licence usually (always?) shouted?

For example, the templates provided on the Open Source Initiative website for the 3-clause BSD License, and the MIT License both include an all-caps warranty disclaimer, though the rest of the license is written with normal capitalisation. Is there…
John Bartholomew
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19
votes
2 answers

Licensing Ghostscript in a commercial product

We are studying a prospect of using Ghostscript in a commercial product (Windows desktop application). I read about sidestepping licensing GS altogether by simply suggesting to the users that they can download and install GS on their own to improve…
Yuri Makassiouk
  • 321
15
votes
2 answers

What's the difference between WTFPL, CC0, and public domain?

What's the difference between WTFPL, CC0, and public domain? Are they essentially the same thing?
Cole Tobin
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