Which License should I pick?

[Daniel Carrera]

> This is going to be a moderately long message, but I believe the 
> license to be one of the more important things to get right

You might want to start with the "safest" license, the GPL.  You can 
always change your mind, or go for a dual-license.


> Specifically, I do NOT want to use something like the GPL which
> forces the user of the code to license their own code under the GPL. A
> provision like that would severely restrict the number of people who
> could make use of the code.

Oh well.  So much for that idea.  :)


> I do, however, want to ensure that my name and copyright remain
> attached to the code. An acknowledgement in the documentation and an
> ASCII string within the binary itself are sufficient for me. I simply
> want to prevent somebody else from claiming that they were the
> original programmer, regardless of any modifications they may have
> made.

As I read it, the BSD has something like that.  It says:

 "Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice"
 "Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 
  notice"

You can always add a small clause to it, I guess.


> I also feel that a person shouldn't be made to read kilobytes of text
> in order to understand the license agreement.

BSD is very short.


> I have briefly skimmed the list of licenses at
> http://opensource.org/licenses/ and the BSD license looks like it
> fulfills my conditions.  I'm posting to this list to see if my
> interpretation of the license is correct. I'm also open to suggestions
> for other licenses on the list of OSI accepted licenses.

I'll wait for someone to double-check the part about retaining 
copyrights.  Other than that, yes BSD seems to be what you want.


> SECOND LINE OF QUESTIONS:
> 
> The project itself performs actions on the in-core binary images of
> running processes. It is capable of saving snapshots of the address
> spaces of running processes to disk. I would like to have
> clarification whether or not such snapshots would be considered
> "derived works" of the programs they came from. Would it be legal to
> distribute one of these binary snapshots if it came from a running
> program which is licensed under a more restrictive license such as the
> GPL?

I'm not sure I understand this.

Snapshots are binary objects, right?

Yes, you can release them under the GPL, but I don't see the point.


> However, is it okay for me to distribute a set of
> instructions, by which another individual can take his own copy of the
> Mona Lisa and draw this horse into the background? For example: "Take
> the Mona Lisa, go six inches from the upper edge and two inches from
> the left edge, and draw a horse."

IANAL, but I am 99.75% sure that this is completely legal.



> This brings up a related question, which although it doesn't directly
> pertain to my project, is equally important: most UNIX-like operating
> systems are capable of creating core files of crashed processes. Are
> these core files "derived works" of the programs which produced them?

No, they aren't.


> After all, they contain portions of the address space of the processes
> in execution --

But the license doesn't cover the address space.  It covers the program 
itself.


> If they are derived works,
> it would appear that all the various crash-reporting applications
> which send core files to a central location for analysis are actually
> breaking the law!

Exactly.  It would be silly.

I think that this would be like arguing that a Word document is a derived 
work of Word and so cannot be distributed.  After all, you used Word to 
make it and by prying into it you can figure things out about how Word 
stores data.

Notice: Word documents are a snaphot of Word's internal representation of 
the document, so this example is not too dissimilar from your situation.


> Sorry for the long-winded message, but I am very anxious to get this
> project off the ground, and I can't do that until I have the licensing
> questions firmly worked out.

As I said.  You can always start with a more restrictive license and then 
work your way down.


Cheers,
-- 
Daniel Carrera | Top 100 things you don't want the sysadmin to say...
PhD student.   | 
Math Dept. UMD | 84. Where's the GUI on this thing?
--
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