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0 pointsjt21904y ago0 comments

> I typically don't include [a license]…

This would be UNLICENSED or NONE then. Unlicensed software can’t be used for too many things, since it’s encumbered by copyright restrictions. (The author’s right to create copies is, in the U.S. at least, implicit, meaning that the simple act of creating a work is enough to have the “copyright” for it.)

There is The Unlicense [1] that explicitly transfers copyright to the Public Domain.

[1] https://spdx.org/licenses/Unlicense.html

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nixpulvis4y ago

What about the whole concept of Copyleft? Which is something that seemed interesting to me but I never really understood the full implications of.

jt2190OP4y ago

With “Copyleft” licenses the license terms automatically apply to derivative works. So if you fix a bug in some GPL licensed code, that bug fix is also licensed under the GPL terms. The “deal” is essentially “everyone benefits from everyone’s work.”

The difficult part is enforcement: How can we even know if a user has made a modification?

The older licenses assume that a user can’t really get more than personal benefit from a modification unless they “distribute” a copy of the modified software to someone else. Clearly the recipient of a copy of commercial software can look and see if any Copyleft code was included.

With the rise of software-as-a-service, however, the modified copy never leaves the user’s computers. This seems like it violates the spirit of “everyone benefits from everyone’s work”. This is one of the issues new Open Source licenses are trying to address.

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