Licensing Software
ITEC 3870 Software Development II,
Anca Doloc-Mihu and Cengiz Günay
(License: CC BY-SA 4.0)
Enforcing Copyright Requires Licensing
- Software can be license by owners to:
- Other programmers (licenses that allow modification and distribution)
- End-users (limited rights, aka EULA)
Contents of Licenses
- Based on the copyright or copy-left protection option selected for your project
- Need to come up with a license document that specifies how others can use your product
- License may need to specify:
- Type of user (e.g., end user versus developer who wants to adopt and distribute)
- Any conditions (e.g., put credits before distribution)
- Commercial use (allowed vs forbidden)
How to Select a License for Your Project
- For open source licenses, see list on Wikipedia. A common and easy method is to use the Creative Commons licenses.
- For proprietary licenses, there are many types. There are also license generators such as BinPress.