How do I choose a licence

[David Woolley]

Aaron Aichlmayr wrote:
> With the plentitude of licences out there how do I choose the one that 
> is right for me? I am making a new php application and would like to 
> stick to an open source licence on the approved list but don't know half 
> of what I'm looking at.

I think you are asking for legal advice, which we cannot give.

You need to write down what you want to achieve with the licence; a lot 
of the poliferation is due to people wanting to achieve very specific 
objectives (some of them being within the letter, but not the spirit).

You also need to write down licencing constrains, e.g. is there a 
particular bit of software that you want to use in your project that 
restricts the licence that you use.

Then you need to read and understand candidate licences, probably 
starting with the most popular ones.

(You also need to check that you actually own the copyright.


-- 
David Woolley
Emails are not formal business letters, whatever businesses may want.
RFC1855 says there should be an address here, but, in a world of spam,
that is no longer good advice, as archive address hiding may not work.