Software licence options

Question

I have run into a situation where I wish to distribute code without a free software license, and don't have a lot of experience in doing so.

First, let me make it clear I'm not trying to fight the piracy of the product. I don't believe in anti-piracy measures mainly because they will ALWAYS be circumvented if someone really wants to - and taking ineffective measures that create an inconvenience to paying customers is something I'd like to avoid - but that's an debate for another day...plus I really don't care THAT much :)

I work in a number of languages, and therefore, as is the case in this particular situation, the code is not always compiled. This current project is in PHP, as an example (open-source in the LITERAL sense only).

I have found the FSF and OSI sites both extremely helpful when I was learning the differences between the various FREE software licenses. I am now looking for opinions on publicly available (pay would be OK as well) license(s) to fit 2 non-free senarios:

1. Commercial software I develop entirely myself without the use of any commercial or open-source components or libraries.

2. Software I develop that DOES use GPL or other free software licensed libraries or components. A simple example being a Joomla extension, but a more complex example being a desktop application (in this case, not Java since the JRE complicates this I assume) that when ported to *nix, uses a GPL distributed C library to interact with some hardware.

Answer 1

Unfortunately for software developers, there aren't many generic commercial end-user software licence agreements (EULAs) out there, mostly because every software project has a different requirements. If you can't/won't hire a lawyer, check out the EULAs of Windows (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/eula/home.mspx) and Mac OS X (http://images.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx106.pdf) to get an idea of what they commonly entail.

Usually, you have clauses the include saying that you aren't selling the product to the user; rather leasing it—this allows you to keep greater control over it.

Also, you should note that the GPL licence is very unfriendly toward commercial applications because of its recursive clause; you should try to find LGPL licences.

Note, I am not offering professional legal advice, just some tips to help you.

Answer 2

A Google search gave this site (as a sponsored link). A search on that site for "software" gave some titles that seem to be relevant. But they cost money to access ...

I'm sure that you could find other examples.

Answer 3

If you wish to maintain control of any kind over your software, make sure that you are including copyright tags in both source and object files, all artifacts that are your own creation.

Answer 4

Rule of thumb with GPL is that only GPL-licensed code can coexist in one address space. So only GPL program can use GPL libraries (with exception of system libraries), and only GPL extensions can be loaded by GPL programs (and because of this it is generally unwise to use GPL for applications that use plugins). Joomla extension, I think, falls into that category. On the other hand, you can use GPL programs in programs on any license when they are run in different processes (eg. using system function or communicating using IPC).

Apart from GPL there are some weaker-copyleft licenses such as LGPL. They are not viral as GPL, which means that they do not affect licensing of derived work (such as programs using given library).