Clarify license
Closed this issue · 12 comments
Hello,
I want to use this project in combination with Fries. Unfortunately this project does not say anything on its license. It already cause confusion to me, as you can see here:
jaunesarmiento/fries#50
OS projects without any license are not useful because they bear a lot of risks. Please clarify the license of your work with adding a LICENSE file (including the chosen license) and a hint in your readme. If made proper, every file in your repository should contain a license header.
Thanks!
As written in the README file the original files are licensed under the Creative Commons 2.5 Attribution License and to avoid any compatibility problems I would like to apply the same here too. Feel free to open a pull request that clarifies the README :)
Thanks Tobias.
Are you making an exception with the attribution need for the Fries project?
If not, the Fries project needs to fix issue #50 and I am going to reopen it there then.
FWIW, I am planning to use Fries and I am willing to give you attribution for your work. I just nearly missed this requirement because the Fries project didn't tell me to do that. That said, it's perfectly reasonable if you would NOT make an exception for this project (exceptions are always hard to handle)
I don't care much about my personal attribution, but I guess you will have to include attribution to Google for the original icon set. But then again, I'm not a lawyer... ;)
In this case you should consider putting your work under public domain:
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/
It would allow Fries to "just use your work" and only attribute Google for the original icon set.
Putting my work under such a license would suggest though that no one needs to be attributed, but since the original work from Google does need to be attributed I'm not sure that would be a wise choice.
Here is a table what licenses you can use:
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#If_I_derive_or_adapt_a_work_offered_under_a_Creative_Commons_license.2C_which_CC_license.28s.29_can_I_apply_to_the_resulting_work.3F
If you are derive the original, you need to apply one of them. If the original is kept intact you might apply a different one to your work only.
That said it would be easiest if you choose one (you already did with CC-BY-2.5) and don't make exceptions. Saying "I don't care" is not enough. If you allow to use your work with only attributing Google, then you should make this crystal clear in your read me. Still adopting projects are at risk because this sentence might disappear in some time and the CC applies. Therefore it would be best to just stick with CC, no exceptions. Up to you. ;-)
that is a good link, thanks! but given that the original work was BY, the chart suggests that Public Domain won't be possible, or am I reading it wrong?
I'm starting to get the feeling that making an exception might be a bad idea and that it would be easiest if we just used the CC-BY-2.5. what issues exactly does that raise for the fries project?
I am also not a lawyer but I agree, I think PD is either very complicated to argue or maybe even not possible.
If you would just use CC-BY-2.5 without any exceptions then the Fries project needs to give credits with you. They do that already with Google, please see their README:
https://github.com/jaunesarmiento/fries/
I believe Fries would need to make an attribution on their website too, not just in the source code, because they use the icons there. On their page even Google attributions are missing.
As a user of Fries, I need to give attribution to Google and to you but not to the Fries project, because Fries is using MIT.
complicated stuff... but I guess it would be the most clean solution. if anybody has a better idea I'm open to suggestions but until then this project will be licensed under the CC-BY-2.5 too.
For original works, the best thing is to use the CC0 public domain dedication which ensures that there are no strings attached for people to get tangled up in and that your work can therefore be used as widely as possible, everywhere and in all situations.
For derivative works, the license of the original work it is based on does constrain you (if it wasn't CC0 or another public domain dedication), making it easiest to just keep the same license as the original.
dc5f260 added a sentence about the project license to the README. I think a seperate LICENSE file is not necessary in this case. if anybody disagrees, I'm waiting for pull requests ;)
Thanks for clarifying this issue and your efforts in general. Now I can safely use Fries and your work too. :-)