License?

[dalb8]

I'd like to be able to distribute this app via f-droid.org, but there needs to be an overall license, like Apachev2 or GPLv3. Also the Notices (if they exist) for Standout should be displayed. Donation links would be welcome: pointing to an XDA Donate link is fine. If publishable releases are git-tagged then that would make updating easy.

[MohammadAdib]

Could you be more precise? What does license mean?

[dalb8]

Sorry, I pressed the Enter button by mistake. The description is there now.

[MohammadAdib]

I'm new to github. How do i do this?

[dalb8]

There is no requirement to put a license, but according to international law, if you don't, then it's equivalent to "All Rights Reserved" and nobody is legally allowed distribute your work. Applying a license kind of depends on the license, but it's basically just amounts to putting headers on each file saying that you wrote it and you allow people to use it under the license you choose. Also a copy of that license will go in the root of the directory. Note that the overall license doesn't have to be identical to the components it just has to be compatible. So if StandOut is Apache licensed, you couldn't choose MIT or GPLv2 as a license, but you could choose GPLv3.

See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html or http://www.apache.org/dev/apply-license.html

[dalb8]

You can also put your code in the Public Domain or give it the Unlicense. That's just the removal of your copyright. Then the overall app would be MIT licensed because of Standout.

[dalb8]

I see that Standout is MIT licensed (the majority of open source android libraries are Apache). That's a very permissive license: it's compatible with most of the others.

[MohammadAdib]

So I'll go with either apache or MIT. Let me see which one is better. Which one do you suggest?

[dalb8]

They're pretty much the same from your point of view, I'd say. Apache has some subtle points about patents that make it a good choice for large projects like Android. MIT has the advantage of being compatible with GPLv2. On our repo they would be the two most popular permissive licences: 177 for Apache, 36 for MIT. There would be an Apache bias on Android so the difference could be less on other platforms.

[MohammadAdib]

Just fixed a few bugs and implemented a low priority notification.

Also added apache license to the source code Java classes:

/\ Copyright 2013 Mohammad Adib

• Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may
• not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a
• copy of the License at
• http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
• Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
• distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT
• WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the
• License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations
• under the License. */

[dalb8]

Now you should put a copy of the apache license in LICENSE in the root and put the COPYING from Standout in that dir. Then declare the overall license in the Readme.

[MohammadAdib]

Okay, I added LICENSE to the root, and COPYING to the StandOutRoundR dir, and said it's licensed under Apache 2.0 in the README. So, did I do it right?

Thanks a lot for helping!

[dalb8]

That's the way I'd do it! With a declaration in the readme I can be confident that all the resources are free too. If some are not , and you declare an exception, we would still probably publish the app as Apache, but it's better to know.