From: Tim Hunter Date: 2009-09-07T21:30:30+09:00 Subject: Re: What licensing info is needed in code headers? Fabian Streitel wrote: > 2009/9/3 Tim Hunter > >> If you want your code to be "business-friendly," lawyers like to see >> licenses that they're already familiar with. You're better off picking >> an Open Source license that suits your needs and using it than you are >> rolling your own or just omitting the licensing terms altogether. >> >> > what about a license that says "do whatever you want", shouldn't that be > easy to > sign off? > If by "do whatever you want" you mean "Yes, take my code and use it the way you want to. You can tell everybody you wrote it, put your own copyright on it, and then demand that anybody who uses it has to pay you for it, including me," then that's called "public domain." Putting things in the public domain is tricky these days, and requires a positive effort on your part (by default you have the copyright), but sure, give it a try. If I was going to do this I'd search for some appropriate lawyerly verbiage to insert in the source code since it's unlikely I'd the the words right on my own. But I think by "do whatever you want" you mean "This is my code. You can use it however you want to. If you share it then you have to share it the same way I do." In that case, retain the copyright and license it with the MIT license. Simply put, the MIT license says "do whatever you want with this code, except you must tell everybody that I wrote it and own the copyright. If you have any problems with the code then I don't take any responsibility for them." It says it in language that lawyers understand. Here's the MIT license in it's entirety. Two sentences. Not so bad, is it? The MIT License Copyright (c) Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php -- MagickWand for Ruby - http://magickwand.rubyforge.org/