add license

[agarwal]

What is the license for your code?

[msimon]

I put GPL-3 when I switch to oasis. But @MassD will have to accept it first. @MassD what do you think ?

[MassD]

Sounds good

[agarwal]

Perhaps you already know all these issues, but just in case, I'll mention that GPL will prevent your code from being used in proprietary software. Most OCaml libraries are LGPL + a special linking exception needed for OCaml (see here). More recently there seems to be a trend in the OCaml community of using much simpler licenses like MIT or BSD.

[MassD]

I don't know anything about license tbh. Simon u can decide

[msimon]

I did not know the special case for Ocaml library. Will LGPL allow user in proprietary software ? If so I'll update the license. I wish to keep any future improvements open. I believe MIT does not specify anything about that. On Nov 23, 2013 2:42 PM, "Ashish Agarwal" notifications@github.com wrote:

Perhaps you already know all these issues, but just in case, I'll mention that GPL will prevent your code from being used in proprietary software. Most OCaml libraries are LGPL + a special linking exception needed for OCaml (see here https://github.com/biocaml/biocaml/blob/master/LICENSE). More recently there seems to be a trend in the OCaml community of using much simpler licenses like MIT or BSD.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/MassD/mongo/issues/12#issuecomment-29143629 .

[MassD]

@agarwal what do you suggest? MIT? BSD? LGPL with special?

[MassD]

@agarwal just being curious, r u or your org trying to use mongo.ml?

[agarwal]

Yes, LGPL will allow use in proprietary software. GPL will not. However, I'm starting to use simpler licenses like ISC. You have to be a lawyer to read LGPL/GPL, and I think it shouldn't be that complicated just to say "anybody can use my code however you want, but please give me credit for it". If it was up to me, I'd pick between BSD, MIT, or ISC, all of which are very similar.

@MassD I'm not planning to use MongoDB immediately, but if your code was GPL then I would not bother to look at it further because I would not be free to use it as I want.

Disclaimer: these are topics that have been debated for 30 years. Others have strongly different opinions than mine, so you really should do some research on this and make an informed decision yourself.

[MassD]

@agarwal To be honest, personally I don't care about license, and I of course wish mongo.ml and bson.ml to be used by people as many as possible.

Since @msimon is the most important person to this code, I will leave @msimon to decide.

@agarwal , hope you could contribute to the driver and make it more complete

[agarwal]

personally I don't care about license, and I of course wish mongo.ml and bson.ml to be used by people as many as possible.

Unfortunately, this statement is in conflict. You have to care about the license to satisfy the second part of the sentence. I agree it's annoying, but there's no way around it. A license has to be chosen, and it is very possible to pick the wrong one (in the sense that your own interest is not met).

[msimon]

The update has been updated to MIT.

Cheers