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31 lines
1.6 KiB
31 lines
1.6 KiB
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title: licensing
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---
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I started hacking on code that I want to publish soon, so I read enough to get a
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simple introduction to the various [free software licences][licences]. The GPL
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[v2][gpl] and [v3][gpl3] and [apache][apache] licenses all seemed needlessly
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complicated. The MIT and BSD licences were nice and short, and very similar.
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Someone else noticed the similarities and merged those two to the [ISC][]
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license, which is what I am settling for now. It is very permissible (read: not
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[copyleft][]).
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The choice was influenced by [The Failure of the GPL][failure], which examines a
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particular case which looked like a win for the GPL but in the author's opinion
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was not. My inner pragmatist and idealist were arguing over [copyleft][], but
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changes in how I act ( favoring simplicity and faith in the natural order of
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things) meant the idealist won. One downside to the [ISC][] is that it does not
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enforce anyone using my code to show me any improvements they make on it. The
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other downside is that it falls under the OSI category of '[Licenses that are
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redundant with more popular licenses][osi]', but it's so simple that if anyone
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wanted to use my code could do so easily.
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[licences]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software_license
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[failure]: http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1390172
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[copyleft]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
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[gpl]: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html
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[apache]: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
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[gpl3]: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
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[isc]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISC_license
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[osi]: http://www.opensource.org/proliferation-report
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