New answers tagged open-source-software
3
Drafting a contract for another person could be considered practice of law:
Among the acts which constitute the practice of law . . . are the preparation, drafting, or selection or determination of the kind of legal document, or giving advice with relation to any legal documents, or matters including the following: offers, options, deeds, mortgages, ...
2
The basic rationale of all licenses is that you are not allowed to copy or distribute someone else's works that is protected by copyright, unless you have their permission. The license states what you are permitted to do, under what conditions (and may also carry disclaimers which could legally protect the copyright owner in case the software causes damage). ...
4
Jurisdiction: england-and-wales
TLDR; Writing a software licence is not considered "practicing law" so it is legal to do so without being a qualified lawyer.
Full answer
The relevant governing law is the Legal Services Act 2007.
Section 12 sets out the "reserved legal activities" and sections 13, 14, 18, and 19 provide that it is an ...
3
Writing your own contract can be a legal minefield. When I first went free-lancing I drafted my own agreement, then decided to show it to my lawyer just in case. He made two points (Australian law, but I think that both points would apply in the US).
The meaning of a contract is not necessarily the meaning intended by the parties to the contract: the ...
3
Are licenses not required to explicitly state
Nah, not at all.
Licenses state whatever they want. There is no authority to compel license writers to include any particular statements.
In case a license you wanna use does not make sense, you either seek clarification or do not use it.
52
As Greendrake says, you can legally create your "open source" license. There are two problems with this:
Since you are not an experienced contract lawyer, there is a significant risk that your license doesn't do what you intend it to do. As a consequence, people who you want to use your software might not do so, because your license prevents it or ...
27
Is it legal to write a software license if I'm not a licensed attorney?
Yes.
creating a contract is considered practicing law.
Is that true?
Yes and no.
You don't even need to know what the word "contract" means to create one. Indeed, you do it every time you buy or sell.
So, it's "no" when you're doing it for yourself. Or you can say &...
0
On Open Source Initiative website you can get an explicite answer to your question. This website have list of all opensource licences including GNU GPLv3 :
Can Open Source software be used for commercial purposes?
Absolutely. All Open Source software can be used for commercial purpose; the Open Source Definition guarantees this. You can even sell Open ...
9
To my understanding software under GPLv3 can be used commercially (e.g. as tool for company-internal calculations) with no restriction.
No, it can't be used commercially with no restriction. It must comply with the restrictions of the GPLv3, therefore it can only be used commercially within the restrictions of the GPLv3 (just like for non-commercial use).
...
49
The second paragraph is an invitation for people who don't want to follow the terms of the GPL (e.g. who want to incorporate it into a larger closed-source work, or make closed-source modifications) to contact XXX for a less onerous (but more expensive) license. That would require that XXX have full rights to the software, that they did not for instance ...
3
If you can accurately describe in one license what constitutes the conditions where you wish to let users freely copy the software, and forbid any other uses, then you can also offer a second license that allows specified commercial uses with a second license. Basically, it reduces to being clear (to yourself and to the world) on what you mean by "...
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