CVSROOT: /web/www
Module name: www
Changes by: Brett Smith <brett> 11/05/25 18:29:57
Modified files:
licenses : licenses.html license-list.html
Added files:
licenses : license-recommendations.html
Log message:
Add "How to choose a license for your own work" page, and links.
CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/licenses/licenses.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.83&r2=1.84
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/licenses/license-list.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.284&r2=1.285
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/licenses/license-recommendations.html?cvsroot=www&rev=1.1
Patches:
Index: licenses.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/licenses/licenses.html,v
retrieving revision 1.83
retrieving revision 1.84
diff -u -b -r1.83 -r1.84
--- licenses.html 27 Apr 2010 20:17:18 -0000 1.83
+++ licenses.html 25 May 2011 18:29:46 -0000 1.84
@@ -26,6 +26,11 @@
documentation licenses</a>.
</p>
+<p>If you've started a new project and you're not sure what license to
+use, <a href="/licenses/license-recommendations.html">“How to
+choose a license for your own work&rdquo</a> details our
+recommendations in an easy-to-follow guide.</p>
+
<p>
Our documentation licenses are currently being revised, and we welcome
your comments on the proposed texts. Please
@@ -435,7 +440,7 @@
<p>
Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2010/04/27 20:17:18 $
+$Date: 2011/05/25 18:29:46 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
Index: license-list.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /web/www/www/licenses/license-list.html,v
retrieving revision 1.284
retrieving revision 1.285
diff -u -b -r1.284 -r1.285
--- license-list.html 2 May 2011 14:19:08 -0000 1.284
+++ license-list.html 25 May 2011 18:29:46 -0000 1.285
@@ -55,6 +55,11 @@
please refer to our <a href="/licenses/gpl-violation.html">license
violation page</a>.</p>
+<p>If you've started a new project and you're not sure what license to
+use, <a href="/licenses/license-recommendations.html">“How to
+choose a license for your own work&rdquo</a> details our
+recommendations in an easy-to-follow guide.</p>
+
<a id="LicensingMailingList"></a>
<p>If you have questions about free software licenses, you can email
us
@@ -1833,7 +1838,7 @@
<p>
Updated:
<!-- timestamp start -->
- $Date: 2011/05/02 14:19:08 $
+ $Date: 2011/05/25 18:29:46 $
<!-- timestamp end -->
</p>
</div>
Index: license-recommendations.html
===================================================================
RCS file: license-recommendations.html
diff -N license-recommendations.html
--- /dev/null 1 Jan 1970 00:00:00 -0000
+++ license-recommendations.html 25 May 2011 18:29:46 -0000 1.1
@@ -0,0 +1,219 @@
+<!--#include virtual="/server/header.html" -->
+<title>How to choose a license for your own work - GNU Project - Free Software
Foundation (FSF)</title>
+<!--#include virtual="/server/banner.html" -->
+<h2>How to choose a license for your own work</h2>
+
+<h3 id="intro">Introduction</h3>
+
+<p>People often ask us what license we recommend they use for their
+project. We've written about this publicly before, but the
+information has been scattered around between different essays, FAQ
+entries, and license commentaries. This article collects all that
+information into a single source, to make it easier for people to
+follow and refer back to.</p>
+
+<p>The recommendations below are focused on licensing a work that you
+create—whether that's a modification of an existing work, or a
+new original work. These recommendations do not address the issue of
+combining existing material under different licenses. If you're
+looking for help with that, please check <a href="/licenses/gpl-faq.html">our
license FAQ</a>.</p>
+
+<h3 id="contributing">Contributing to an existing project</h3>
+
+<p>When you contribute to an existing project, you should usually release
+your modified versions under the same license as the original work.
+It's good to cooperate with the project's maintainers, and using a
+different license for your modifications often makes that cooperation
+very difficult. You should only do that when there is a strong reason
+to justify it.</p>
+
+<p>One case where using a different license can be justified is when you make
+major changes to a work under a non-copyleft license. If the version you've
+created is considerably more useful than the original, then it's worth
+copylefting your work, for all the same <a href="/copyleft/">reasons we
normally recommend
+copyleft</a>. If you are in this situation, please follow the
+recommendations below for licensing a new project.</p>
+
+<p>If you choose to release your contributions under a different license
+for whatever reason, you must make sure that the original license
+allows use of the material under your chosen license.
+To minimize the impact on others,
+show explicitly which parts of the work are under which license.</p>
+
+<h3 id="software">Software</h3>
+
+<p>We recommend different licenses for different projects, depending
+mostly on the software's purpose. In general, we recommend using the
+strongest copyleft license that doesn't interfere with that purpose.
+Our essay <a href="/copyleft/">“What is Copyleft?”</a> explains the
+concept of copyleft in more detail, and why it is generally the best
+licensing strategy.</p>
+
+<p>There are only a couple of kinds of projects that we think should not
+have any copyleft at all. The first is very small projects. As a
+rough benchmark, we compare the project's source code to the text of
+the GPL. When the source code is not much larger than the license,
+the benefits provided by copyleft are usually too small to justify the
+inconvenience of making sure a copy of the license always accompanies
+the software.</p>
+
+<p>The second is projects that implement free standards that are
+competing against proprietary standards, such as Ogg Vorbis (which
+competes against MP3 audio) and WebM (which competes against MPEG-4
+video). For these projects, widespread use of the code is vital for
+advancing the cause of free software, and does more good than a
+copyleft on the project's code would do.</p>
+
+<p>In these special situations where copyleft is not appropriate, we recommend
+the <a href="http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0";>Apache License
2.0</a>. This is a permissive, non-protective
+software license that has terms to prevent contributors and distributors
+from suing for patent infringement. This doesn't make the software immune
+to threats from patents, but it does prevent patent holders from setting up a
+“bait and switch” where they release the software under free
+terms, but require recipients to agree to royalties or other nonfree terms
+in a patent license.</p>
+
+<p>In all other cases, we recommend some kind of copyleft. If your project is
+a library, and developers are already using an established alternative library
+released under a nonfree or permissive license, then we recommend using
+the <a href="/licenses/lgpl.html">GNU Lesser General Public License
(LGPL)</a>. Unlike the case
+discussed earlier where the project implements a standard, here adoption
+for its own sake will not accomplish any particular goal, so there's no
+reason to avoid copyleft entirely. However, if you ask developers who
+use your library to release their work under a full copyleft, they'll simply
use one of the
+alternatives available, and that won't advance our cause either. The
+Lesser GPL was designed to fill the middle ground between these cases,
+allowing proprietary software developers to use the covered library, but
+providing a weak copyleft that benefits users when they do. If you want to
+learn more about our thinking in these cases, read <a
href="/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html">“Why you
+shouldn't use the Lesser GPL for your next library.”</a></p>
+
+<p>If your project could likely be run on a server after others improve
+it, interacting with its users over a network, and you're concerned
+that fewer developers will contribute to the released versions as a result, we
+recommend the <a href="/licenses/agpl.html">GNU Affero General Public License
(AGPL)</a>. The
+AGPL's terms are almost identical to the GPL's; the sole substantive
+difference is that it has an extra condition designed to ensure that
+people who use the software over a network will be able to get the
+source code for it. This condition doesn't address every problem that
+can arise when users do their computing on a server—it won't
+stop users from being <a
href="/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html">harmed by Software as
a
+Service</a>—but it accomplishes as much as a license can. To
+learn more about these issues, read <a
href="/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html">“Why the Affero
+GPL.”</a></p>
+
+<p>In all other cases, we recommend that you use the most recent version
+of the <a href="/licenses/gpl.html">GNU General Public License (GPL)</a> for
your project. Its
+strong copyleft is appropriate for all kinds of software, and includes
+numerous protections for users' freedom.</p>
+
+<h3 id="documentation">Documentation</h3>
+
+<p>We recommend the <a href="/licenses/fdl.html">GNU Free Documentation
License (FDL)</a> for
+documentation. It's a strong copyleft license for educational works,
+initially written for software manuals, and includes terms which
+specifically address common issues that arise when those works are
+distributed or modified.</p>
+
+<p>Some documentation includes software source code. For instance, a manual
+for a programming language might include examples for readers to follow.
+You should both include these in the manual under the FDL's terms, and
+release them under another license that's appropriate for software. Doing
+so helps make it easy to use the code in other projects. We recommend that
+you dedicate small pieces of code to the public domain using <a
href="http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0";>CC0</a>, and
+distribute larger pieces under the same license that the associated
+software project uses.</p>
+
+<h3 id="data">Other data for programs</h3>
+
+<p>This section discusses all other works for practical use that you
+might include with software. To give you some examples, this includes
+icons and other functional or useful graphics, fonts, and geographic
+data. These recommendations do not concern artistic works that
+have an aesthetic (rather than functional or educational) purpose, or
+statements of opinion or judgment.</p>
+
+<p>If you are creating these works specifically for use with a software
+project, we generally recommend that you release your work under the
+same license as the software. There is no problem in doing so
+with the licenses we have recommended:
+GPLv3, LGPLv3, AGPLv3, and GPLv2 can all be applied to any kind of
+work—not just software—that is copyrightable and has a clear
+preferred form for modification. Using the same license as the
+software will help make compliance easier for distributors, and avoids
+any doubt about potential compatibility issues. Using a different
+free license may be appropriate if it provides some specific practical
+benefit, like better cooperation with other free projects.</p>
+
+<p>If your work is not being created for use with a particular software
+project, or if it wouldn't be appropriate to use the same license as
+the project, then we only recommend that you choose a copyleft license
+that's appropriate for your work. We have some of these <a
href="/licenses/license-list.html#OtherLicenses">listed on
+our license list</a>. If no license seems especially
+appropriate, the <a href="/licenses/license-list.html#ccbysa">Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike</a>
+license is a copyleft that can be used for many different kinds of
+works.</p>
+
+</div>
+<!--#include virtual="/server/footer.html" -->
+
+<div id="footer">
+<p>
+Please send FSF & GNU inquiries to
+<a href="mailto:g...@gnu.org";><em>g...@gnu.org</em></a>.
+There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
+the FSF.
+<br />
+Please send broken links and other corrections or suggestions to
+<a href="mailto:webmast...@gnu.org";><em>webmast...@gnu.org</em></a>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Please see the
+<a href="/server/standards/README.translations.html">Translations
+README</a> for information on coordinating and submitting
+translations of this article.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2008, 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.,</p>
+<address>51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110, USA</address>
+<p>Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is
+permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is
+preserved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Updated:
+<!-- timestamp start -->
+$Date: 2011/05/25 18:29:46 $
+<!-- timestamp end -->
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<div id="translations">
+<h4>Translations of this page</h4>
+
+<!-- Please keep this list alphabetical by language code. -->
+<!-- Comment what the language is for each type, i.e. de is German. -->
+<!-- Write the language name in its own language (Deutsch) in the text. -->
+<!-- If you add a new language here, please -->
+<!-- advise web-translat...@gnu.org and add it to -->
+<!-- - /home/www/html/server/standards/README.translations.html -->
+<!-- - one of the lists under the section "Translations Underway" -->
+<!-- - if there is a translation team, you also have to add an alias -->
+<!-- to mail.gnu.org:/com/mailer/aliases -->
+<!-- Please also check you have the language code right; see: -->
+<!-- http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php -->
+<!-- If the 2-letter ISO 639-1 code is not available, -->
+<!-- use the 3-letter ISO 639-2. -->
+<!-- Please use W3C normative character entities. -->
+
+<ul class="translations-list">
+<!-- English -->
+<li><a href="/licenses/license-recommendations.html">English</a> [en]</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+</div>
+</body>
+</html>
