[TriLUG] I have some sticky licensing questions

[Bill Farrow]

As someone who has developed both proprietary and open source code, I
find Open Source Licenses to be much cleaner and easier to deal with.

Proprietary source code and binary only libraries require more work on
the legal front, since you have to negotiate license terms as well as
cost. Better make sure that you have a clause in the license that
deals with bugs and who pays to have them fixed.  Most proprietary
licenses that I have dealt with are lengthy, confusing, and sometimes
incompatible with the product you are developing.  Then there are the
code snippets or sample pattern implementations that don't even have a
copyright or license with them - which puts you into a legal gray
area.

I don't consider the GPL to be viral.  I can imagine a virulent
license that included not only derivative works but also the outputs
from the programs.

If your happy with someone taking your project and selling it for a
profit without giving anything back, use a BSD license.  If you want a
cut of the profits, use a proprietary license.  If you just want to
make sure that any bug fixes or improvements are contributed back to
your project, then use GPL.


Bill