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Licensing Considerations #38

Closed LottePitcher closed 4 years ago

LottePitcher commented 4 years ago

Are package developers giving due consideration to the license that they are choosing for their package? Not suggesting we should be advising on what they choose (of course), but can we encourage them to think about it, rather than just assuming the default MIT license is most appropriate for them?

Interesting to see that Lee Kelleher has moved away from MIT for his new v8 package. He explains why too: https://github.com/leekelleher/umbraco-contentment

The current guidance in docs, https://our.umbraco.com/documentation/Extending/Packages/Creating-a-Package/, says "Will be set to MIT by default. If you are planning on selling your package you can change the license here". Is it a straight-forward free v commercial decision? I don't believe it is.

Perhaps some extra guidance about making sure they understand/have thought about the licensing implications and to consider alternatives (https://opensource.org/licenses) would be a good start?

The license info is asked for in the back office when creating the package and on Our when describing the package. Both UIs do allow for a short description under the label or input.

Something to discuss on next package team call?

leekelleher commented 4 years ago

@LottePitcher Thanks for the mention.

Within the Umbraco community - MIT is a great general license to offer. It covers the basic protections (for the author) and freedoms (for the user).

My switch to MPL (specific for my latest package) is more a deliberate decision. I want modifications to the code I've shared to be openly available. Although MPL comes with its own burden - since it's a "file-level" license, I must add the license header to each and every source code file. (That's something I'm happy to do, others may find it a PITA!)

My general advice is to recommend MIT as the default, and raise awareness that other types of licensing are available, a la https://choosealicense.com/

LottePitcher commented 4 years ago

@leekelleher thanks for the advice, and for the link to Choose A License, was unaware of that site. Sounds a sensible approach to me :+1:

jmayntzhusen commented 4 years ago

I honestly hadn't considered the differences between all the open source licenses - as I am sure most people running through the package creation also haven't. Would be good to at least inform about it in the docs (or potentially in the package creator itself?), would either of you be up for making a PR to the docs? 🙂

LottePitcher commented 4 years ago

Sure, I can get that PR done to the docs. Then might look at what's involved in the package creator process ...

umbrabot commented 3 years ago

Hiya @LottePitcher,

Just wanted to let you know that we noticed that this issue got a bit stale and might not be relevant any more.

We will close this issue for now but we're happy to open it up again if you think it's still relevant (for example: it's a feature request that's not yet implemented, or it's a bug that's not yet been fixed).

To open it this issue up again, you can write @umbrabot still relevant in a new comment as the first line. It would be super helpful for us if on the next line you could let us know why you think it's still relevant.

For example:

@umbrabot still relevant This bug can still be reproduced in version x.y.z

This will reopen the issue in the next few hours.

Thanks, from your friendly Umbraco GitHub bot :robot: :slightly_smiling_face: