adaway-linux icon indicating copy to clipboard operation
adaway-linux copied to clipboard

Possible license issues

Open stablestud opened this issue 7 years ago β€’ 6 comments

From CreativeCommons them self:

Can I apply a Creative Commons license to software?

We recommend against using Creative Commons licenses for software. Instead, we strongly encourage you to use one of the very good software licenses which are already available. We recommend considering licenses made available by the Free Software Foundation or listed as β€œopen source” by the Open Source Initiative.

Unlike software-specific licenses, CC licenses do not contain specific terms about the distribution of source code, which is often important to ensuring the free reuse and modifiability of software. Many software licenses also address patent rights, which are important to software but may not be applicable to other copyrightable works. Additionally, our licenses are currently not compatible with the major software licenses, so it would be difficult to integrate CC-licensed work with other free software. Existing software licenses were designed specifically for use with software and offer a similar set of rights to the Creative Commons licenses.

Version 4.0 of CC's Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) license is one-way compatible with the GNU General Public License version 3.0 (GPLv3). This compatibility mechanism is designed for situations in which content is integrated into software code in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to distinguish the two. There are special considerations required before using this compatibility mechanism. Read more about it here.

Also, the CC0 Public Domain Dedication is GPL-compatible and acceptable for software. For details, see the relevant CC0 FAQ entry.

While we recommend against using a CC license on software itself, CC licenses may be used for software documentation, as well as for separate artistic elements such as game art or music.


On choosealicense.com

Data, media, etc.

CC0-1.0, CC-BY-4.0, and CC-BY-SA-4.0 are open licenses used for non-software material ranging from datasets to videos. Note that CC-BY-4.0 and CC-BY-SA-4.0 should not be used for software.


I'm not saying this license is a bad choice, I actually really agree with it, but a possible problem may be the use with other free software as the CC-BY-SA-4.0 license isn't intended for software but for videos, sounds etc.

But most importantly:

CC licenses do not contain specific terms about the distribution of source code, which is often important to ensuring the free reuse and modifiability of software source:

Which could be complicated if in any near future someone wants to ship your software with a distro.

It's just my opinion but you may want to change the license (if possible) to some license which is created specifically for software. (e.g MIT or GNU GPLv3)

Best way to to choose one is by visiting choosealicense.com

stablestud avatar Nov 23 '17 13:11 stablestud

I chose this CC license because of its easiness, but you're right. IMHO we should change to GPLv3.

For this we have to ask all contributors for their agreement. This are:

  • [x] @sedrubal
  • [x] @stablestud
  • [x] @nightvisi0n
  • [ ] @Huntereb
  • [x] @ThanosGkara
  • [x] @thomasb22
  • [x] @targunitoth

Please drop a short comment whether you agree to switch to GPLv3 or not or just hit πŸ‘ or πŸ‘Ž .

sedrubal avatar Jan 01 '18 19:01 sedrubal

I think GPLv3 is better than CC license. Unless you plan on charging a fee in the future. :grinning:

ThanosGkara avatar Jan 01 '18 20:01 ThanosGkara

:+1:

ThanosGkara avatar Jan 01 '18 20:01 ThanosGkara

πŸ‘

ghost avatar Jan 01 '18 23:01 ghost

πŸ‘

stablestud avatar Jan 02 '18 13:01 stablestud

πŸ‘ I don't care about the license

Targunitoth avatar Mar 29 '18 20:03 Targunitoth