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open-sourcelicensing

Which OSS license fit for "Keep my part open always"

I want the license be general permissive, but:

  1. You can embed my software in your software, but the source code of my part must be distributed with your product, and keep the license of my part unchanged.
  2. You can change and rename my software, but the history part of the change log must be preserved.
  3. You can using my software in your web service, but there must be a source code download link (of my part) somewhere obvious to see in the web page.

Well, there maybe not an exactly equivalent license, but which license seems most fit do you think?

Solution

  • I don't think a generally used license with all these conditions exists.

    Sounds like you want elements of both:

    • The LGPL - which satisfies 1 and generally has the "my part must be open" philosophy
    • The Affero GPL, which requires sharing code if the software is used over a network (your point 3)

    My advice however would be to select a commonly used license that is closest to what you want. Go to http://opensource.org/licenses/category and check out the "Licenses that are popular and widely used or with strong communities"

    I'd guess LGPL would be the best fit (it doesn't satisfy your web-service requirements, but that's an uncommon requirement and hard to enforce anyway). LGPL is an excellent choice for libraries where you want the code of the library itself to stay open but don't mind the library being used in a generally permissive way.