[TriZPUG] Open-Source Licenses - what do you like to use and why?

[Paul McLanahan]

On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 2:55 PM, Chris Rossi <chris at archimedeanco.com> wrote:
> I tend to use BSD these days.  It is the least restrictive of all.  Pretty
> much anybody can use it for whatever they want.  They just have to give
> attribution and can't change the license for your code.  If a customer needs
> me to build something for them that they want to keep closed source, then
> using BSD licensed code still works.  (This doesn't tend to happen in
> practice, as these customers simply use the code internally to provide a
> service as opposed to releasing their software for distribution--even GPL
> works fine for this, if you don't distribute the software.)  At any rate,
> it's just the easiest for me, as its open source as a practical means of
> getting things done, as opposed to an ideology.

I also like BSD [0] or MIT [1], but mostly BSD. They're just there to
indemnify you from any liability and to make sure anyone can do
anything with the code except claim they wrote it. I've found that the
lack of restrictions on use encourage adoption and contribution.

Paul

[0] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php
[1] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html