Which license to use?

[Ian Lance Taylor]

kloprogge at pointlogic.com writes:

> - I represent a for profit comapny and considering turning one or
> two products to become open soure (OSI approved). However, I would
> like to assure that my company is seen as the driving force behind
> those products and get the credit for this. As such I would like the
> product to be branded towards the company. Is there any license you
> would recommend, I would like a simple basic and clear license that
> would cover this.

What are your actual goals?  If you release the software, and people
use it, they will know where it came from.  There is no need to worry
on that score, and there is no need to actually enforce it in
licensing terms.  It's a natural impulse to keep things held as
tightly as possible.  When releasing open source you should work
against that impulse, and instead try to release things as widely as
possible.  People will remember you better if you are the company
which freely released that widely used software than they will if you
are the company which released that less popular software with strings
attached.

> - What are the rules with regards to having software that includes
> modules that can be distributed freely but for which source code is
> not available?

Those modules are not open source.

Ian