own licence


if i have developed an open source software; am i allowed to write my own licence(one in which i have my own conditions). for instance, i might not agree with the wording of the various available formats of licences and would prefer to impose my own conditions on the users.
roohbir

own licence 5


if i have developed an open source software; am i allowed to write my own licence(one in which i have my own conditions). for instance, i might not agree with the wording of the various available formats of licences and would prefer to impose my own conditions on the users.
roohbir


Leave a comment

5 thoughts on “own licence

  • mikendall
    own licence

    Hi Ros060,
    You are free as the copyright holder to attach your own conditions and your own licence, but if your licence does not comply with accepted open source licence rules, then you would be deceiving your users by referring to your software as open source.
    Your users may also not agree with your conditions so you could find that your wizard creation is not as popular as it deserves to be.

    Please check with the holy ten commandments at the OSI website.
    http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php
    If your licence breaks one of the ten commandments you would be a sinner and have to leave the global open source village.

  • padams1
    own licence

    Hi Roohbir,

    If you develop software and want to release it as open source then you cannot go far wrong by using an OSI approved approach (such as Malcolm has suggested) or using the (L)GPL. The GPL and LGPL are used for the vast majority of open source projects. Strictly speaking, the use of these licenses makes it “free software”.

    Usually creating your own license isn’t advisable:
    * It takes time and requires sufficient legal knowledge
    * People who don’t know your particular license may be suspicious of it

    If an OSI or (L)GPL style license does not suit you, then there is nothing to stop you writing your own license. However, if neither of these do suit you then perhaps releasing your project as open source is not what you really want.

    Paul