bitwalker/keys.js

CC BY-SA might be a bad idea

hugoroy opened this issue · 3 comments

If you choose a copyleft license for software, please choose one that’s compatible with as many other licenses as possible. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for CC BY-SA (which, BTW, was probably not meant really for software where there are plenty of licenses already).

If you want a license with copyleft: you can choose, among others:

  • Mozilla Public License version 2 (compatible with GNU GPLv3 and Apache License v2)
  • GNU General Public License version 3
  • or also the AGPL or the LGPL…

Could you clarify the issues you have with this license? I'm willing to change it, but I'd like to know what problems specifically the current one presents to you. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you!

The issue is CC BY-SA is written in a way that is very probably not compatible with other more widely adopted copyleft licenses for software, like the GPL or the MPL.

So it might be difficult to adopt/integrate key.js in larger software projects because of this license.

By "compatible" I mean that it’s not legally possible for somebody to respect both the CC BY-SA and the GPL at the same time when they apply to software using key.js. What that means concretely is: either developers using key.js will commit license non-compliance (hence copyright infringement), or they will just not use key.js (which is unfortunate).

For quick info on that issue, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ccbysa

Good call. I'm going to use LGPLv2 for this, which should be broad enough for just about any usage, and maintains compatibility with both GPLv2 and v3.