As far as I understand. I can use a project licensed under MIT license into a proprietary software. Am I right? It dosen't force any copyleft and I don't have to say that my project is based on something else. That means I can fork the hell out of it, right?
Can someone shed some light over this?
You need to include the copyright in "all copies or substantial portions of the Software." That's pretty much the restriction of the MIT License.
That being said, there is no substitute for consulting a lawyer in this case. Proper legal advice is the only correct answer.
I think your reading is correct, but in regards to legal matters, hire a lawyer. Do not rely on the wisdom of an anoymous programmer forum. ;)
The MIT license and BSD licenses (without advertising clauses) kick in only when you redistribute the programs / libraries in source code format. You have to maintain the original author(s) copyright(s) and clearly mark your forks as a modified version, so they won't be confused as being the original version.
The BSD license requires that any documentation distributed with compiled versions of the software mention the use of the libraries and original author's copyright. Keep in mind, when creating a substantial fork, you also become a copyright holder.
Finally, you can't make it seem like the original author's endorse your forks without prior written permission. Warranty is up to you, even though the license says NO WARRANTY. If you want to sell it with a warranty, you are free to do so. Just know that you can't go back to the original authors to satisfy the terms of a warranty that you sold.
I am not a lawyer, but an IP lawyer who specializes in software licensing works in my office. This question comes up frequently.
Hi Kevin and Reed
Actually the MIT license says "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software." It means, one has to include the copyright notice as well as the license permission right? If that is the case, this MIT license permission will contradict the new proprietary license we apply because MIT allows modification, distribution but proprietary will not. Isn't ?