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[Hinchy]

Okay. Here's the deal. I'm working on a thing that I want to open source. However, I have specific requirements for a license:

No copyright OR copyleft.
I want my work to be freely distributed and/or modified, but I don't want to force anyone to make their projects open source just because mine is.

Attribution.
I want credit that the person has modified/used my code. Pretty simple.

I've found plenty of licenses that fit the first one, and a few that fit the second one, but none that work both ways. Of course, there's Creative Commons Attribution license, but it explicitly states on their site not to use it with software. HALP

[Lynx]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_license#Terms

[Eclipse]

Okay. Here's the deal. I'm working on a thing that I want to open source. However, I have specific requirements for a license:

No copyright OR copyleft.
I want my work to be freely distributed and/or modified, but I don't want to force anyone to make their projects open source just because mine is.

Attribution.
I want credit that the person has modified/used my code. Pretty simple.

I've found plenty of licenses that fit the first one, and a few that fit the second one, but none that work both ways. Of course, there's Creative Commons Attribution license, but it explicitly states on their site not to use it with software. HALP

what you need is LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License

[Ina Vegt]

Okay. Here's the deal. I'm working on a thing that I want to open source. However, I have specific requirements for a license:

No copyright OR copyleft.
I want my work to be freely distributed and/or modified, but I don't want to force anyone to make their projects open source just because mine is.

Attribution.
I want credit that the person has modified/used my code. Pretty simple.

I've found plenty of licenses that fit the first one, and a few that fit the second one, but none that work both ways. Of course, there's Creative Commons Attribution license, but it explicitly states on their site not to use it with software. HALP

what you need is LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Lesser_General_Public_License

Not Exactly, LGPL is copyleft, it just allows you to link to the library without publising the software you link to it. (Unlike GPL which requires you to release software linked to it under the GPL.) Any changes to LGPL'ed software still need to be released.

In this case, the classic BSD license would suffice.

Alternatively, you could put in a clause like this:

<software> is copyright © <year> <copyright holder>
<copyright holder> grants the recipient(s) of <software> (Called the "licensee" in the remainder of this text) a perpetual, freely transferable, non-exclusive license to modify, compile, and redistribute this software and/or it's sourcecode in whole or in part, as long as the following condition(s) are upheld:

• Any materials used to promote, provide information about, or used in destribution of this software and/or any derivations of this software must include the following notice: "This software includes contributions by <copyright holder>"
• Any software distribution that includes <software> in whole or in part that has been licensed to any third parties by the "licensee" must include the following notice "This software includes contributions by <copyright holder>"

(By the way, use that as you like, if you want. Note that while I have lawyer friends, I am not a lawyer, and this preceding license example does not come with a warrantee of anything, including usability, fitness of purpose, and a lack of loopholes.)

Have a nice day.

[lordmetroid]

I always go for BSD license on my software, I have no intentions to prosecute people who do not follow my wishes for whatever information I produce. I have issues with doing so both on moral grounds and monetary grounds. So better to let them do whatever they wish as long as I am not responsible for whatever they decide to do with the information I produce including executing the program.

Hmm, wonder if a Virus with a BSD-license would be free me from any liabilities

[mona.adele]

This may help. The section at the bottom distinguishes the different licenses. Part 2 deals almost exclusively with GPL, so I didn't like it here, but it does link to the valid and accepted open source licenses.

http://www.underdevelopmentlaw.com/2008/03/open-source-faq.html

[nihilocrat]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_license#Terms

Seconded.

LGPL is also good, but if you just want your work to be easily re-used, BSD is much simpler.

I'm no lawyer, but MIT seems to more explicitly say "here, have it all, for free, do whatever you want!", because it states things like "sell" and "sublicense", while BSD is a bit more conservative and enumerates only the core permissions. It also explicitly protects you / your organization's name, stating it can't show up in modified versions of the software without permission. Under MIT, someone could theoretically take YOUR GAME BY YOU and modify it and keep the "BY YOU" part even though you had nothing to do with it, or even take it as-is and start selling it in jewel cases at $20 a pop.

Thus, I like BSD better because it has more of an open source spirit and less of a public domain spirit, while at the same time it's not as restrictive as (L)GPL.

You are never going to have to worry about these distinctions, but I thought it would be fun to talk about it in a license thread.

[aschearer]

I agree with others who suggested the BSD or MIT licenses which are pretty much the same. Whatever you do make sure you're compatible with GPL because there's a huge amount of software developed against it, software you may someday wish to incorporate.

[qubodup]

No copyright OR copyleft.
I want my work to be freely distributed and/or modified, but I don't want to force anyone to make their projects open source just because mine is.

No copyleft, check! Copyright however exist always, except you release something into the public domain (which might not be possible in some jurisdictions). Copyright is not a problem, regarding giving rights to others. That's what licenses are for. This was just FYI.

Attribution.
I want credit that the person has modified/used my code. Pretty simple.

[/quote]
"Credit" is relative but the best non-copyleft license in these regards is the zlib license, which is nearly like the BSD license. The reason is this:

2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be misrepresented as being the original software.

To use an open source license, it is recommended to put it, commented, in the top of each source code file and in a license.txt file.

There are no instruction on how to use it, so I recommend the how-to-use-GPL-instructions. This will give ideas on where to place a license and where to put additional info near it.

[hexageek]

zlib/libpng license (BSD style)