License to use?

BBB · 2006-07-17T00:08:25

I'm almost finished with my Window Manager and tutorial on how to make your own WM. I haven't uploaded the code yet though since i haven't decided what license to use. GPL is probably the best choice but there is one thing that worries me: Quote: This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. Can I change it and say that only version 2 is allowed? The reason for this is that Stallman and Co can add anything in newer versions of the license and that worries me. For example I don't agree with him on the on proprietary drivers-issue. Secondly: I would like my site to be a center for WM-development where others can upload their tutorials on the subject. Shall I let the author keep the copyright for his tutorial? I think that forcing the author to give the copyright to me is a bit to Nazi. The best would be a license that gave me the right to post the tutorial but that the author keeps the right to remove his work. And what if I later on start selling CDs (similar to NeHe's CD) to fund the site? I can't recall all the CDs just because one author decides to remove his turial! Anyone got a license to recommend for this? What are your thoughts?

Everything Unix Technical

Started by BBB May 31, 2006 09:54 AM

31 comments, last by Sander 18 years, 2 months ago

BBB

Author

292

July 08, 2006 10:43 AM

/*************************************************************************** *   Copyright (C) 2006 by BBB                         * *   $EMAIL$                                                               * *                                                                         * *   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify  * *   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2,       * *   as published by the Free Software Foundation;                         * *                                                                         * *   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,       * *   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of        * *   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the         * *   GNU General Public License version 2 for more details.                * *                                                                         * *   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License     * *   along with this program; if not, write to the                         * *   Free Software Foundation, Inc.,                                       * *   59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA.             * ***************************************************************************/

Does that sound ok? Should I add "Note that this software is licensed using GPL version 2 and no other version of GPL"?
Now I only have to find a full license-text of GPL 2 without the "or any later version"...

[Edited by - BBB on December 25, 2006 4:43:03 PM]

guywithknife

479

July 10, 2006 05:05 AM

Quote: Original post by BBB
Are you guys interested in making your own Window Manager?

I'd be interested in reading your tutorial.

Sander

1,332

July 17, 2006 12:08 AM

Quote: Original post by BBB
Okay, I sent an email to GNU a couple of days ago asking for a GPL-license text without the "or any later version"-part since I'm to lazy to edit it myself (and besides, it wouldn't really be GPL then IMO). Since I haven't got any reply from GNU I've decided to simply use the new BSD-license.

The GPL doesn't have the "or later version" bit. Only the blurb that you copy/paste at the beginning of a source file does (and you can remove that). Here's the GPL, and the blurb you can use at the top of source files is:

/* *  Program name - filename *  Copyright Year, Your name * *  This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify *  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by *  the Free Software Foundation version 2 of the License only. * *  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, *  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of *  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the *  GNU General Public License for more details. * *  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License *  along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software *  Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. */

<hr />
Sander Marechal<small>[Lone Wolves][Hearts for GNOME][E-mail][Forum FAQ]</small>

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