Pick a license for your Rails additions
Posted by David January 24, 2006 @ 05:36 PM
Rails is released under MIT and only includes packages that are either directly under MIT or were re-licensed specifically for Rails under MIT. But not all plugins, generators, engines, or other types of additions are as explicitly clear as to what license they’re released under. It would be great if they were.
So, if you’re the creator of a Rails addition of any kind, please do pick a license and include it with your software. I recommend MIT.
Any particular opinion or reason for not using GPL or LGPL for Rails? (I was thinking about this yesterday)
GPL and LGPL has gotten enough FUD to make people think twice about implementing it. Whether or not that’s rational, it’s reality.
How does MIT compare to the Apache license? Or are they generally compatible with each other?
GPL is incompatible to MIT because of its ‘viral’ nature. But I always wondered why MIT and not BSD?
GPL and BSD are the two big licenses, why not stick with them? The BSD license serves the same purpose as the MIT license but it is more up-to-date and better known.
I recommend http://www.openbsd.org/policy.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_License
So bigger is better? I like a 20 line license, myself.
Jonathan: GPL is perfectly compatible with the MIT X11 license. See the list of compatible licenses.
Robert: It doesn’t work both ways. Somethign licensed under MIT can be redistributed under GPL but not the other way around.
what about the BSD license ? not as short as MIT, but nice :)
Why not this for a license, “Distribute freely, give credit for derived work, make love, not war.”
@Robert:
The GPL is compatible with MIT but MIT is not compatible with the GPL :-)
The GPL is “less free” or rephrased it enforces more (e.g. ‘viral’) than the MIT license. Therefore you can bundle GPL code with MIT code and the result will be GPL compatiple. But the result is not compatible with the MIT license.
If you use GPL code in your MIT licensed project, your project becomes GPL licensed or better said you have to follow the restrictions of the GPL. Thats the whole idea about the copy-left.
Therefore many consider the GPL less free than the BSD or MIT license.
My memory isn’t great, but isn’t one of the main differences between MIT and BSD that you can’t use the names of the creator(s) to publicize derivative projects?
The GPL is “more” free, because it protects the freedom.
However, I believe that the MIT License is a perfect choice for Rails and related Projects. :)
Even though it’s less free. ;) :p
-Richard
The first important step is to have all projects that are releasing code to be used with RoR to very clearly state their license.
Programmers and businesses must know the license of the code they are considering. Without knowing the license information, they cannot make an informed decision as to whether or not to use a project’s code.
Sourceforge, rubyforge, freshmeat and other places like mamboforge.net all list the licenses right up front on the project’s page and make it easy to figure out what a project is using. But a lot of Rails generator and plugin code is just a link to the code off a page on the Rails wiki, with no mention of license info.
Even beyond listing the license on the project’s homepage, it should be included with the code, either in the README or in its own file.
I’ve talked to a couple of projects about this, and they quickly listed their license on their project’s homepage, but it is time consuming to search for license info that isn’t there and then contact the project lead when you multiple this by 5 or ten projects.
Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to code you are using that isn’t yours.
Having all projects list their license (whatever license that is) goes a long way in helping mature the Rails community.
There are also two books on open source licensing out: Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing by Andrew M. St. Laurent
Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law by Lawrence Rosen
http://www.bookpool.com/ss?qs=licensing
Dennis
They should just rename the MIT license “Do whatever the hell you want with it and leave me out of it” license and it would be much better. GPL should be “do whatever the hell you want with it as long as you let the next guy do the same”. Granted, when talking about serious legal issues such as licensing gross over simplifications like these can hurt as much as they help, but people would find it easier to find the right license if they weren’t all just three letter alphabet soup: GPL/LGPL/MIT/BSD/WTF?!
the more you hear about l/gpl the worse they sound. along with gpl3 disallowing any type of drm makes it sound even better ;/ (yes as much as we hate it drm is here to stay no matter what fashion it in :()
im actually curious as to if anyone would know a nice site that compares the gpl/lgpl/mit/bsd/apache/any-others? licenses and explain’s what they entail in stupid people text ;) i dont like trying to interpret legal documentation, isnt that what lawyers are for.
From what I’ve heard, MIT is the same as BSD, only BSD used to have the “obnoxious BSD advertising clause”. Now there is an advertising-free version of the BSD clause, but I believe people prefer MIT because of the associations? There’s something like four different variations of the BSD licencse. (5-clause to 2-clause.) The old ones were GPL-incompatible.
As for the GPL, it makes your programs more free but your programmers less free. It does exactly what it was intended to do. (deathtosymbolics)
I’ve released a lot of open source stuff and generally have gotten more patches back for MIT releases then GPL.
Its an attitude question. GPL means that the author of the library tells you what you can and can’t do with it, MIT tells you that you can decide what to do and what not.
Generally people like to be treated respectfully and contribute back when they are proud of what they created. MIT makes sure that everyone can give it a try.
please don’t talk about how wonderful the shitty gpl is
Any particular opinion or reason for not using GPL or LGPL for Rails? (I was thinking about this yesterday)
The terms of the GPL are too vague for many companies to use. For maximum use, you want to use a liberal license like MIT or BSD.
here are some good links i found searching for license differences
http://www.soberit.hut.fi/T-76.115/01-02/palautukset/groups/MUPePe/t1/project_plan/appendix/licenses/licenses.html http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-license/ http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-license2/ http://www.petefreitag.com/item/533.cfm
gpl’s whole viral affect sounds good for software, not developers. bsd/mit look to be the most friendly. bsd looks more enjoyable for the ‘cant use name to advertise’ policy.
anyway, enjoy
Sean Chittenden voices out on some of these issues at the end of the current Rails Podcast.
Well, considering that current versions of the GPL require even code that is subclassed from GPLed code to be GPLed, and that the next version will require code-release for web applications based on GPLed code, I can see why a GPLed web framework would be (rightly) considered poison for business use.