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tursodatabase / libsql

libSQL is a fork of SQLite that is both Open Source, and Open Contributions.
https://turso.tech/libsql
MIT License
10.06k stars 262 forks source link

About the license #26

Closed zeritonius closed 2 years ago

zeritonius commented 2 years ago

SQLite is public domain, both as source and as documentation.

I'm not a lawyer, but as far as I know, the Apache license is more restrictive than the public domain one, and it applies to the software, not also to the documentation.

I was wondering if you're willing to make libSQL public domain or at least MIT from the start. From what I understand, MIT license also applies to the documentation, and it's easier to understand, in my (and some others') opinion than Apache license.

Thank you.

glommer commented 2 years ago

yes, we'd be willing to do MIT. Public domain no, because we explicitly want to go with an OSS approved license that doesn't have the gray areas of public domain.

@penberg wdyt ? Most rust projects these days, for example, are dual licensed MIT + Apache and I'm very comfortable with that.

penberg commented 2 years ago

@glommer I am obviously fine with MIT or dual-license MIT+Apache.

zeritonius commented 2 years ago

Thank you for considering MIT license.

If you dual license, could you, please, specify explicitly that the user can choose one of the available licenses? "Apache and MIT" is confusing to some, as they think they might need to follow both (actually, some projects force the user to follow both) while "MIT or Apache, at your choosing" looks crystal clear to me.

FabsMuller commented 2 years ago

Don't release software as public domain, this is a mess. If you do so, legally, you are abdicating of any rights you could have on the software and people can do whatever they want with it. I'm not a lawyer, but had some experience supporting some. Any open source is better than public domain (for software). Apache is MIT with “lawyers steroids”. It's complicated to read, but they are similar. The same is valid with the documentation, you can release with whatever license you want, although this is very unusual. You could release it with a different license from the software. The only requirement is to explicit appoint which one you are using in both cases. You can find more info here.

SamuelMarks commented 8 months ago

What you can do, is use SPDX expressions to make all parties happy. For example: Apache-2.0 OR MIT OR CC0 would give you the benefits of public-domain (CC0), of patent issuance (Apache-2.0), and of interoperability compliance with various GPL and LGPL levels (MIT).

That's my recommendation anyway: Apache-2.0 OR MIT OR CC0