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Review What You Fork on Github

jacquesmattheij.com

Since submitting this, I've been looking around for a kind of "Hacker's Guide to Software Licenses", and haven't come up with anything. Does anyone have a good reference that lists out the more common licenses and explains in what situations a hacker should be cautious?

Wikipedia has some info that might be helpful:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Attributes_of...

This article shows which licenses are GPL-compatible and/or allow you to link to code under a different license.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Comparison_of...

The FSF's materials are a little geared towards the assumption that you're using the GPL, but they're no doubt a significant part of the source material for the Wikipedia articles.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and nothing I say is legal advice. Use my advice at your own risk. It may be wrong.

If you are building a website and you do NOT redistribute the website's software (e.g. allow people to run the website on their own server), you can incorporate code from most open source licenses. Here are some specifics:

* The MIT, BSD, PSF, and Apache licenses are fantastic for proprietary websites, even if you do redistribute the website's software. (In which case you may need to include a disclaimer, copyright notice, and/or copy of the license, depending on the details of that specific license.)

* Libraries licensed under the AGPL may NOT be used for proprietary websites. The GPL's language is unclear about proprietary websites, so it would be best to avoid using GPL libraries altogether or to consult a lawyer.

* You may use LGPL libraries, but if you modify them then you may have to release the code that you modified. (Due to the aforementioned uncertainty.) Again, I am not certain about this, but I have seen that claimed before.

Feel free to correct me. I would be happy to hear that I am incorrect regarding the GPL.

Edit: I was incorrect regarding the GPL. Please see http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/07/the-gpl-and-softwa...

This may be a bit more than you're looking for, but Van Lindberg's book, Intellectual Property and Open Source, is pretty good: https://www.amazon.com/Intellectual-Property-Open-Source-Pro...

One interesting thing is that not a single Github DMCA takedown notice so far deals with direct copyright infringement, nor do any of them specify which lines of code are infringing. I'm sure the more traditional copyright infringement happens on occasion, but we have yet to see any DMCA takedown notices as a result.

Unfortunately it is too easy and in everyone's individual interest to advise others to be careful. But how big is the actual risk? I'd like to see examples of this actually being a problem. What has happened already, and what were the consequences?

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