Choosing a license
Bruce Alspaugh
compulinkltd at gmail.com
Thu May 10 20:20:47 UTC 2007
My company is considering releasing a software library under an
open-source license, but since we are developers not lawyers we could
use some advise in selecting the most appropriate license. We would like
to choose a license with the following characteristics:
1. We want to allow others to link closed-source or commercial software
with our open-source software library. We would like for them to give
notice or acknowledgment that the work was used in it.
2. If someone modifies the source of the library, we want to require
them to release the modification so we could at our option legally
include the modification in future versions of the library.
3. We would like to protect ourselves and contributors to the
open-source software library when it comes to software patents. We like
provision 3 of the Apache 2.0 license.
Can you give us a list of software licenses that have these
characteristics? The LGPL looks close but I don't see anything like
characteristic 3. The Apache 2.0 looks close, but I think it lacks
characteristic 2.
Are there any plans to revise the LGPL when the GPLv3 is finished to
better deal with patents?
Sincerely,
Bruce
More information about the License-discuss
mailing list