Best licence for my software?

NSK nsk2 at wikinerds.org
Sun Apr 17 03:42:53 UTC 2005


Hi,

I am working on some wiki/CMS software (PHP) and I want to open-source it. 
Could you help me decide what licence to apply?

The software is composed of two parts (both to be open-sourced):

1) A Library that implements an API, allowing other programmers to build their 
own wiki/CMS applications.
2) An actual wiki/CMS Application which uses the API.

I am considering the Sun's CDDL, GNU's GPL or LGPL, and MIT licences. In 
addition, I am eager to multi-license the software under multiple licences.

Here are my requirements:
A) University employees, students and researchers should be able, in 
connection with their work/studies/research in their university, to copy, use 
and modify both my Library/API and my Application without restrictions as 
long as I get proper credit. The MIT Licence seems to do this job well, but 
it is not restricted only to university people.
B) Everyone else who wants to use the Library/API outside the context of 
university studies should be able to copy, use and modify my Library/API 
under a weak copyleft licence which will enable me to collect back their 
bugfixes/improvements/changes to my library/API and allow them to use this 
library in any software no matter their licence. The LGPL and CDDL licences 
seem good for this requirement.
C) Non-university people should be able to copy, use and modify the actual 
application I produced (which uses my library/API) under a strong copyleft 
licence which will prohibit them from incorporating the application's code in 
proprietary programs. The GPL licence seems to be the best one for this job.
D) GPL projects should be able to incorporate any part of my Library/API and 
Application code.
E) the chosen licences should be terse, easy to read and avoid superfluous 
technical jargon.

Which licence is the best one to license my software, in your opinion?

Thanks,
-- 
NSK
http://portal.wikinerds.org



More information about the License-discuss mailing list