Law & Etiquette of using Open Source

Question

I'm using a BSD API to build my own API and I'm wondering if there is any restriction when I will release my own API in term of license choice, packaging, distribution ...

I'm also curious about what do you guys think is the better way to pay homage to the API that we use : documentation citation, code source citation ...

To summarise and generalise my question :

1. Law : What is the formal impact of using free licence (GPL, BSD, CDDL ...) API in our own licence ...
2. Etiquette : How do you cite API that you use ...

Answer 1

1, Read the licen[s/c]e
2, Splash screen or about box for major stuff, in readme/manual for minor stuff

Answer 2

1. In general you need to read each license (for each imported library) carefully to get a general understanding, if you need specific legal advice I would definitely consult a lawyer on what specific questions you have
2. Each licensed library will usually call out what is required in terms of disclosure, usually it is citing each imported library in a readme type file (or the equivalent for your platform/software), as well as disclosing which files/libraries were modified and what modifications where made (changes, person who changed it, etc), if you modified any of the libraries you consumed.

Most licenses try and make it fairly easy for you to include the libraries, and distribute your software. There are only a few which require propagation of the license terms to the inheriter (such as GPL).

Answer 3

Generally, you read the licenses, and follow the terms within them. All of the licenses are different, and have different requirements, so there's no one-size-fits-all answer for all free software licenses.

On the whole, most licenses require at the very least that you include the license along with the software that you distribute. Some, like the GPL, impose additional conditions, such as releasing your source code under the same license. But you need to read and understand each of the licenses themselves, you can't get a single answer about all of them.