[Tell] What's what with open source licenses?

LoneIgadzra

Legal stuff makes my head spin, and I haven't the faintest inkling of the inner machinations of copyright law.

I want to put an open source project up on google code. Google code wants me to choose a license for it. I don't give a flying fuck what people do with the code in this project as long as they credit me. What should I choose? What are the main differences between them? Do I need to put a license header in all my source files?

Thanks for any help!

Edit: Oh yeah, and what are the legal issues with choosing a name for a project? I have a very serious open source project that I actually want to retain some control over and distribute to local libraries, and I need to name it something.

Barrakketh

That's usually when you decide to talk to a lawyer. IANAL, nor are most of the users on this board. Keep in mind that if you're linking against other libraries as to be sure that whatever license you choose will need to be compatible with them.

That said, if you don't really care what they do with it (including proprietary stuff) you could look at version two of the Apache License. Section 4, subsection 3 states that:

You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works; and

so that should fulfill the crediting part. As for using it, read the section that says " APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work " that is bolded at the bottom.

exoplasm

I only know this much about open source licenses:

GPL: The typical open source license.  Requires any published changes to include source of said changes.  Many companies avoid this because they don't want to be in legal trouble for customizing it.

LGPL: A more proprietary-friendly version of the GPL, I think.

BSD: The original(?) "do whatever you want with it, just give us credit. kthx" license.  The credit part is displaying the copyright owner(s).

I don't know much about the Apache or Mozilla licenses. You should look them up on Wikipedia for more information.

Edit: code block for incorrect smiley usage

edit again:

LoneIgadzra wrote: »

Edit: Oh yeah, and what are the legal issues with choosing a name for a project? I have a very serious open source project that I actually want to retain some control over and distribute to local libraries, and I need to name it something.

As far as I know as long as you're not violating a trademark and you don't use a name too similar to a related project you should be okay. IANAL of course.

Daedalus

Basically, GPL means "anyone can use this code, and if you redistribute this code (with or without modifying it) you need to provide the source and the right to redistribute and modify this code."

The LGPL is the same thing except you can link a closed-source application to an open-source dynamic library (and so the license is pretty much only used on libraries)

The BSD license allows someone to come along later, take your open source project, modify it, and sell or otherwise distribute it as a closed source application, as long as you get credit somewhere in there.

There are some other details (I don't remember all of the finer points of difference between the GPLv2 and GPLv3), but usually open source licenses are in fairly easy-to-understand language, so you can just read them.

Salvius

The BSD license sounds perfect for you. It has a few different versions, but this is probably the simplest one:

Copyright <year> <name of author>

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.