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marlon407 / code-groovy

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License? #17

Open marcdumais-work opened 4 years ago

marcdumais-work commented 4 years ago

Looking quickly I could not find under which license this repo is under. Would you consider adding a license file to clarify the situation?

careyblack commented 3 years ago

Please set a license:

https://docs.github.com/en/github/creating-cloning-and-archiving-repositories/licensing-a-repository

" You're under no obligation to choose a license. However, without a license, the default copyright laws apply, meaning that you retain all rights to your source code and no one may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work. If you're creating an open source project, we strongly encourage you to include an open source license. The Open Source Guide provides additional guidance on choosing the correct license for your project. "

stefan-hdt commented 3 years ago

A license statement would be very much appreciated. Or does the statement

This is an open source project open to anyone. Contributions are extremely welcome!

indicate that any use of this code is permitted for everyone in any case?

careyblack commented 3 years ago

Sadly such a vague statement in a single document (README.md) of the project would likely not qualify as a license. ( As far as I can tell. ) GitHubs explanation is very clear. No license means "default copyright laws apply". "default copyright laws" basically say that the author(s) "owns it" and "anyone who wants to use it needs to get a license from them". Or the "owner(s)" can legally seek compensation for the use of their property at any point in the future.

The rub is really three fold:

  1. any project can "accept any code they want" without allowing anyone to actually "use the project code" later.
  2. Though as the list of Author's grow it technically becomes harder to "re-license" the project too.
  3. "open source" is not a legally defined "license". It really just means that you can see the code. ( Think "open book" vs 'closed book". You can read one. The other you can not. ) The details of what you can do, or not do, with the code is the point of the license.

In an odd way: It is completely legal to publish your source code to the world and license it in a way that if they read it, then they are violating your license! Though I think GitHub's terms and conditions would prevent you from publishing your code under such a license on GitHub. :)

Yes, anyone can make up any license, with any conditions that they choose. However, it does need to be clear that it applies to all of the code and hopefully is a "well known license" so that the legal value(s) are a known enforceable contract. Which is to say that "making up a license" is not a great idea if you really want others to use, or contribute to your project.

My suggestion is to pick one of the common FOSS licenses and let the world keep coding. If you really don't want to pick a license then go with this one: https://choosealicense.com/licenses/unlicense/.

At this point there are two contributors to the project. If they both agree to that license, then add it to the repo and it is done. Both contributors really do need to agree. Or there could be complications later too. ( Again, legally the person who "wrote it automatically owns it by default". And they need to license it to "give up that ownership" under the conditions that they choose. )

Or the repo is dead (not being updated since Aug 2019) and without a license very hard to see a path to fork and improve it.

guipaivanz commented 1 year ago

When is the licensing going to be added?