Looking for BSD-style license with "modified" clause

Lawrence Rosen lrosen at rosenlaw.com
Tue Dec 9 03:16:15 UTC 2008


What Chuck Swiger described as a BSD-style license similar to OSL 3.0 (i.e.,
with a source code attribution requirement) is the AFL 3.0 license:

http://opensource.org/licenses/afl-3.0.php

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen
Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a technology law firm (www.rosenlaw.com)
3001 King Ranch Road, Ukiah, CA 95482
707-485-1242 * cell: 707-478-8932 * fax: 707-485-1243
Skype: LawrenceRosen



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chuck Swiger [mailto:chuck at codefab.com]
> Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 12:13 PM
> To: Jeremiah Martell
> Cc: license-discuss at opensource.org
> Subject: Re: Looking for BSD-style license with "modified" clause
> 
> Hi, all--
> 
> On Dec 8, 2008, at 12:05 PM, Jeremiah Martell wrote:
> > I'm going to start releasing some code I wrote, and I was going to
> > release it in the 3-clause BSD license.
> >
> > However, I would like to have a clause that stated if anybody modified
> > my code and released it, they have to say "modified version of XYZ" or
> > something.
> 
> You can either start with the 3-clause BSD license or MIT license and
> add something like this from the OSL:
> 
> "6) Attribution Rights. You must retain, in the Source Code of any
> Derivative Works that You create, all copyright, patent, or trademark
> notices from the Source Code of the Original Work, as well as any
> notices of licensing and any descriptive text identified therein as an
> "Attribution Notice." You must cause the Source Code for any
> Derivative Works that You create to carry a prominent Attribution
> Notice reasonably calculated to inform recipients that You have
> modified the Original Work."
> 
> ...or you might use the OSL directly if you are happy with its
> intent.  It's not commonly used as a license, but the OSL(v3) is well-
> crafted and might suit you better.  Other people might prefer the GNU
> LGPL or even plain GPL, as they also require modified versions to be
> prominently renamed and documented.
> 
> Regards,
> --
> -Chuck




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