In this article, we will talk a little about copyright, but mostly about choosing a free license for the RAD framework. and for open source products based on it. We will talk about permissive license Apache 2.0, about what led us to it and what decisions we faced in the process.
The process of choosing a license is quite laborious and should be approached already fairly well-read, and if you are not a happy owner of a law degree, then an unplowed field of information about various free licenses opens before you. The main thing to do is to draw up a set of limiting criteria. Through the process of discussion and reflection, you and your team will be able to understand what you want to allow users of your product and what to prohibit. When you already have a certain description in your hands, you need to overlay it on existing licenses and highlight the one where the largest number of points matched. It sounds simple, of course, but in reality, usually even after discussion, questions remain.
First, a link to , a useful site that we used extensively. Pay particular attention to licenses according to 13 main criteria. May English and patience be with you.
Flour choice
Let's start with the general features of licenses for . Open source software implies an exclusively free license that does not restrict commercial and non-commercial distribution according to the model . Accordingly, by posting software under a free license to the network, it is impossible to completely restrict its transfer, distribution and sale by third parties, and you just need to mentally prepare for this.
A free license gives the user the right to participate in the reverse engineering of the software or modify it in other available ways. Most licenses do not allow you to rename the product or perform any manipulations with it, changing the rights of the author and / or owner of the system.
The main questions we were interested in about free licenses were:
- The changes made to the software should be fixed and have nothing to do with the copyright holder of the system?
- The name of the derived software must not be the same as the name of the software owner?
- Is it possible to change the license for any new versions to another one, including the proprietary one?
After carefully looking at the list of the most common licenses, we chose a few that we considered in more detail. Potential licenses for were: GNU GPLv3, Apache 2.0, MIT and MPL. MIT almost immediately excluded, this is a permissive non-copyleft license that allows the use, modification and distribution of the code in almost any way, but this option did not suit us, we still wanted the license to regulate the relationship between the copyright holder and the user. Most of the smaller projects on GitHub are published under the MIT license or its various variations. The license itself is very short, and of the prohibitions, only the indication of authorship of the software creator.
License was next. MPL 2.0. Frankly, we did not immediately come to it, but having studied it in more detail, we quickly excluded it, since the main drawback is that the license is not applied to the entire project, but to individual files. In addition, if the user modifies the file, the license cannot be modified by the user. In fact, no matter how hard you change the Open source project, you will not be able to monetize it because of such a license. By the way, this does not apply to the copyright holder.
A similar problem persists with the license GNU GPLv3. It requires that any file remain under it. The GNU GPL is a copyleft license that requires derivative works to be open source and remain under the same license. That is: by rewriting two lines of code, you will be forced to commit your changes and, upon further use or distribution, keep the code under the GNU GPL. In this case, this is a limiting factor for the user of our project, not for us. But changing the GPL to any other license is prohibited, even within GPL versions. For example, if you change LGPL (GPL add-on) to the GPL, there will be no turning back to the LGPL. And this point was decisive in the vote against.
In general, our choice initially leaned towards GPL3 precisely because of the distribution of the modified code under the same license. We thought we could secure our product this way, but we saw fewer risks in Apache 2.0. According to the Free Software Foundation, the GPLv3 is compatible with the Apache License v2.0., meaning it is always possible to change the license from Apache License v2.0 to GPL v3.0.
Apache 2.0
β a balanced permissive license with an emphasis on copyright. Here are the answers she gave to our questions. The changes made to the software should be fixed and have nothing to do with the copyright holder of the system? Yes, all changes must be documented and we are not responsible for either the source code or the modified one. The file with the changes must be attached to the code in which you made these changes. The name of the derived software must not be the same as the name of the software owner? Yes, derivative software must be released under a different name and under a different trademark, but with attribution of the copyright holder. Is it possible to change the license for any new versions to another one, including the proprietary one? Yes, you can release under different licenses, Apache 2.0 does not restrict the use of any non-commercial and commercial licenses.
Also, when releasing new products based on open code under Apache 2.0 or products of additional functionality, it is not necessary to use the same license. Below you can see an image with the terms and conditions of the Apache 2.0 license.
The license puts forward the requirement to preserve and mention the copyright and the license under which the software is released. Mandatory presence copyright notice with the name of the copyright holder and the license protects the rights of the original author of the software, because even if it is renamed, given away or sold under a different license, the author's mark will still remain. You can also use the file for this. INSTRUCTIONS and attach it either to the source code or to the documentation for the project.
We release all of our products under the Apache 2.0 license on GitHub, except , the source code of which in April of this year was published under the GPLv3 license on GitHub by the Far Eastern Center for Social Technologies. At present, in addition to and published made in fremwork. On HabrΓ©, we already talked about and about .
Those. framework details
IONDV. Framework is an open source framework on node.js for creating high-level web applications based on metadata, which does not require serious programming skills.
The basis of the application's functionality is the data registry - the Register module. This is a key module designed directly for working with data based on metadata structures - including for managing projects, programs, events, etc. The project also uses a portal module to display arbitrary data templates - it implements the front of the registry of archival files.
MongoDb is used for the DBMS - it stores application settings, metadata, and the data itself.
How to apply a license to your project?
Add file LICENSE with the text of the license to the repository of your project and voilΓ , the project is protected by Apache 2.0. You need to specify the copyright holder, this is copyright notice. You can do this in source code or in a file INSTRUCTIONS (a text file listing all libraries licensed under the Apache license along with the names of their creators). Put the file itself either in the source code or in the documentation distributed along with the work. Ours looks like this:
Copyright Β© 2018 ION DV LLC.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0
Apache 2.0 license text
Apache license
Version 2.0 January 2004
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR USE, REPRODUCTION, AND DISTRIBUTION
-
definitions.
"License" shall mean the terms and conditions for use, reproduction,
and distribution as defined by Sections 1 through 9 of this document."Licensor" shall mean the copyright owner or entity authorized by
the copyright owner that is granting the License."Legal Entity" shall mean the union of the acting entity and all
other entities that control, are controlled by, or are under common
control with that entity. For the purposes of this definition,
"control" means (i) the power, direct or indirect, to cause the
direction or management of such entity, whether by contract or
otherwise, or (ii) ownership of fifty percent (50%) or more of the
outstanding shares, or (iii) beneficial ownership of such entity."You" (or "Your") shall mean an individual or Legal Entity
exercising permissions granted by this License."Source" form shall mean the preferred form for making modifications,
including but not limited to software source code, documentation
source, and configuration files."Object" form shall mean any form resulting from mechanical
transformation or translation of a Source form, including but
not limited to compiled object code, generated documentation,
and conversions to other media types."Work" shall mean the work of authorship, whether in Source or
Object form, made available under the License, as indicated by a
copyright notice that is included in or attached to the work
(an example is provided in the Appendix below)."Derivative Works" shall mean any work, whether in Source or Object
form, that is based on (or derived from) the Work and for which the
editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications
represent, as a whole, an original work of authorship. For the purposes
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separable from, or merely link (or bind by name) to the interfaces of,
the Work and Derivative Works thereof."Contribution" shall mean any work of authorship, including
the original version of the Work and any modifications or additions
to that Work or Derivative Works thereof, that is intentional
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to the Licensor or its representatives, including but not limited to
communication on electronic mailing lists, source code control systems,
and issue tracking systems that are managed by, or on behalf of, the
Licensor for the purpose of discussing and improving the Work, but
excluding communication that is conspicuously marked or otherwise
designated in writing by the copyright owner as "Not a Contribution.""Contributor" shall mean Licensor and any individual or Legal Entity
on behalf of whom a Contribution has been received by Licensor and
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Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of
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copyright license to reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of,
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Work and such Derivative Works in Source or Object form. -
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or a Contribution incorporated within the Work constitutes directly
or contribution patent infringement, then any patent licenses
granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate
as of the date such litigation has been filed. -
redistribution. You may reproduce and distribute copies of the
Work or Derivative Works accordingly in any medium, with or without
modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You
meet the following conditions:(a) You must give any other recipients of the Work or
Derivative Works a copy of this License; and(b) You must cause any modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files; andΒ© You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works
that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and
attribution notices from the Source form of the Work,
excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of
the Derivative Works; and(d) If the Work includes a "NOTICE" text file as part of its
distribution, then any Derivative Works that You must distribute
include a readable copy of the attribution notices contained
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of the following places: within a NOTICE text file distributed
as part of the Derivative Works; within the Source form or
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do not modify the License. You may add your own attribution
notices within Derivative Works that You distribute, alongside
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may provide additional or different license terms and conditions
for use, reproduction, or distribution of Your modifications, or
for any such Derivative Works as a whole, provided Your use,
reproduction, and distribution of the Work otherwise complies with
the conditions stated in this License. -
Submission of Contributions. Unless you explicitly state otherwise,
any Contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the Work
by You to the Licensor shall be under the terms and conditions of
this License, without any additional terms or conditions.
Notwithstanding the above, nothing here shall supersede or modify
the terms of any separate license agreement you may have executed
with Licensor regarding such Contributions. -
Trademarks. This License does not grant permission to use the trade
names, trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor,
except as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the
origin of the Work and reproducing the content of the NOTICE file. -
Disclaimer of Warranty. Unless required by applicable law or
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WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or
implied, including, without limitation, any warranties or conditions
or TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. You are solely responsible for determining the
appropriateness of using or redistributing the Work and assume any
risks associated with Your exercise of permissions under this License. -
Limitation of Liability. In no event and under no legal theory,
whether in cake (including negligence), contract, or otherwise,
unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly
negligent acts) or agreed to in writing, shall any Contributor be
liable to You for damages, including any direct, indirect, special,
incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a
result of this License or out of the use or disability to use the
Work (including but not limited to damages for loss of goodwill,
work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all
other commercial damages or losses), even if such Contributor
has been advised of the possibility of such damages. -
Accepting Warranty or Additional Liability. While redistributing
the Work or Derivative Works thereof, You may choose to offer,
and charge a fee for, acceptance of support, warranty, indemnity,
or other liability obligations and/or rights consistent with this
license. However, in accepting such obligations, you may act only
on your own behalf and on your sole responsibility, not on behalf
or any other Contributor, and only if You agree to indemnify,
defend, and hold each Contributor harmless for any liability
incurred by, or claims asserted against, such Contributor by reason
or your acceptance of any such warranty or additional liability.END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work.
To apply the Apache License to your work, attach the following
boilerplate notice, with the fields enclosed by brackets "[]"
replaced with your own identifying information. (Don't include
the brackets!) The text should be enclosed in the appropriate
comment syntax for the file format. We also recommend that a
file or class name and description of purpose be included on the
same "printed page" as the copyright notice for easier
identification within third-party archives.Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License atUnless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the license.
License = contract
A free license, although it is free, does not allow permissiveness, and we have already given examples of restrictions. Choose a license considering both your interests and the user, because open source software is designed specifically for him. The user of the project should perceive the license as a kind of agreement between him and the copyright holder, therefore, before taking any action on the source code, carefully study the restrictions imposed on you by the project license.
We hope that we have shed some light on the topic of licenses and, despite the complexity of the issue, it should not become an obstacle in your path to Open Source. Develop your project and do not forget about the rights, yours and others.
Useful links
Finally, some useful resources that helped us in finding information about existing licenses and selecting the most suitable for our purposes:
- super useful from
Source: habr.com