Ask HN: Is open source licensing source controlled? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is open source licensing source controlled?

2 pointscorytheboyd2 comments

It’s kind of a poorly phrased question, but it’s hard to fit the full context into the title, let me explain a bit first.

Let’s say you have a publicly visible codebase with no licensing in that source whatsoever.

When you add a license, is the codebase “licensed going forward” or does the code at the revision behind the “added license” commit not have the license applied?

Similarly, curious what happens if the license is changed.

I’d imagine there aren’t really strict rules here, and it’s about how good of a lawyer you have to defend yourself (in whichever direction benefits you), or maybe there are some actual rules I don’t know about!

——

Oh one quick follow up question: licensing per-file vs licensing per codebase. I imagine it mirrors distribution 1:1 but am curious if there is more context on this as well!

I am not a lawyer either, but:

> When you add a license, is the codebase “licensed going forward” or does the code at the revision behind the “added license” commit not have the license applied?

I believe verdverm is right. Unless you make an explicit announcement somehow about previous versions, your licence document would be taken to apply only to the version(s) of the software that bundle that licence document.

> curious what happens if the license is changed

Same principle applies. You could explicitly re-license the old versions of your software under the new licence as well.

> follow up question: licensing per-file vs licensing per codebase

I think you'd be on fairly safe legal ground just including a licence document with your project, but GNU recommend you include a short notice in every file in your project, directing the reader to the full text of the licence. [0]

[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.en.html

IANAL...

Without a license, your code falls under copyright protection. Licenses will work on a before/after basis, RE: Amazon / Elasticsearch.

You can also dual license and there are a myriad of new "open source" licenses being created (as in possibly evolving meaning or bastardization, depending on who you talk to)

We've entered an interesting time with OSS proliferation and the need to make money to support products.

Check out https://coss.media and https://2020.opencoresummit.com/

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