Advise: Licence Choice? - No prompt answer from user "SMF Customization Team"

[Wellwisher]

My Youtube mod (still under development) uses one open-source Javascript by another author (Mr.X) - which since, I have improved.

That's the only piece of code that is "open-source code". The rest, is built from scratch.

I want a Licence that protects my code/files against other people/ developers from doing the following:

• Re-selling
• Modifying - (Personal use granted)
• Using my hardwork code/ files and claiming rights to it
• No distributing - (other than simplemachines.org)

I want a Licence that says "All rights reserved/ restricted" which will protect my work but because Mr.X code is open-source - there is a conflict of Licence(s).

To solve this, my thoughts are to add a "declaration" to all my files saying: Only Mr.X code/ file is "open source", the rest of the files and codes are Wellwishers work so please get your "thieving-hands" off it - will this be ok? 

So I am a little confused here and need advise.

[JBlaze]

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=532829.0

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html

[Wellwisher]

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=532829.0

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html

Thank you @JBlaze. From reading that article and looking at other mods which use open-source-code, i.e "Jquery" and label themselves as "All rights reserved" means mod authors can dictate "restricted/ no license" so long as proper declarations are given to any open-source code used.    Much respect!

[Antes]

This is not how Open-Source community works... If you keep struggling on "edits/redists" etc... You'll never understand the true meaning of open-source (or going open-source). I personally use MIT license for my works (mods/themes/code snips). I suggest pretty much same for you. In the end you took someone else's code and build your mod onto it.

https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

[Kindred]

Open source should be open. We argued for years over the smf license and finally made it fully open with 2.0. Yes...  We have forks because of that.. But - for the most part, it has actaully contributed to the open source community and has not hurt us.

Also, given how little of the code in that mod is actually your own... Who bloody cares?

[Antechinus]

These two are the best, IMO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISC_license

http://www.wtfpl.net/

[Wellwisher]

@Antes I want my hard-work and time invested in developing code protected.

@Kindred A number of SMF Team members have set-up shop over others "open-source" hard-work and profited from it. Sure, they are legally free to do this, just not with my work.

My advise to other new developers: Give proper declarations to any third party online tutorials, articles and authors used so SMF team are satisfied. This was new to me; most online tutorials (by default, if they do not have a clear licence declared), they are considered a "restricted/ no licence". It's some sort of an unwritten rule of the internet. Luckily the code I used, the author mentions people are free to modify and make edits to.

[live627]

@Kindred A number of SMF Team members have set-up shop over others "open-source" hard-work and profited from it.

humor me

[Kindred]

It is not an "unwritten rule on the internet"

it is actually legal precedent.
If a specific license is not declared/included, then the most restrictive license of copyright MUST be assumed.

Also  "feel free to use this on your site" != "you can distribute my code"

[Wellwisher]

It is not an "unwritten rule on the internet" it is actually legal precedent.

I will "assume" you're telling me the truth Kindred and I respect this. I do however want to know where it states this, and what countries have to abide by this law. I am from the U.K and I love operating under one of our greatest laws "finders, keepers". 

Also  "feel free to use this on your site" != "you can distribute my code"

I don't get it. 

[Illori]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention

[Wellwisher]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention

Says nothing which would extend this protection to software code. Law is fascinating stuff! I love watching Suits TV show. 

[Antechinus]

It is not an "unwritten rule on the internet" it is actually legal precedent.

I will "assume" you're telling me the truth Kindred and I respect this. I do however want to know where it states this, and what countries have to abide by this law. I am from the U.K and I love operating under one of our greatest laws "finders, keepers". 

No worries. I'll remember that whenever I find some of your code. I'm sure everyone else will too.

Also  "feel free to use this on your site" != "you can distribute my code"

I don't get it. 

It means you can use the code on your own site, but you can't distribute it to other parties. Any other parties that want to use the code have to get it from the original source. What's hard to understand about that?

[Wellwisher]

@Antechinus I am exploring the legalities hypothetically. Ofc, if I am developing a product for sell and there's an unnamed, uncredited, unlicensed code at my disposal, I won't touch that with a 10ft pole. I rather not face a lawsuit or have someone say, "Dude, you stole my code!". Hence why I am seeking advise here to protect what's rightfully mine.

Besides why settle for being credited with this "opensource bs" when your hard-work can potentially bring you licensing royalties. 

[Antechinus]

That seems like an odd question to ask on a support site for open source software. Are you saying that everyone who has ever worked on SMF code, or code for any other open source project, including the open source code you relied on for your mod, is stupid? Can you really think of no other motivation apart from money in your pocket? If you really are a bear of that little imagination, I'll attempt to explain.

It's similar to the difference between commercial practice and scientific practice. In commercial practice, you do stuff to make money. In science, you do stuff to find out things that people didn't know before. In commercial practice you try to keep all knowledge gained to yourself. In science you try to make it as freely available as possible so that others can critique it and build on it, and you can then check out their work too and possibly build upon it even more.

As another way of looking at it, doing open source coding can be at least partially altruistic. Someone might feel that giving people free access to a means of communication that suits their community is a worthwhile thing to do.

Alternatively, someone might feel that they just want to write code that does something they find useful, and they don't really care what anyone else does with it, and they can't be bothered trying to enforce legal restrictions on it when they already have plenty of other things taking up their time.

I'm sure other people could offer more reasons too. These are just a few quick ones off the top of my head.

[青山 素子]

Rather than argue about open source, I'll try to provide some actual information here. It's up to the author how they feel about licensing.

There are many laws which handle copyright, and most software licenses depend on copyright protection. Each country may have a slightly different understanding or practice, so if you want a real solid answer, find a law expert for your country and get an opinion from them.

Note that some software licenses will restrict your ability to license your own work in the goal of making your work subject to open source terms as well.

A lot of what you can do will be dictated by the Javascript you are using from the other source and how you are using it. For the most part, if you've kept a good barrier between your stuff and the other, you can do what you suggest. If you've made your code intertwined with that source, you'll be bound to license compatibly with that code. Since you didn't provide the license it was under or what it was, it makes it difficult to give you a firm feeling on that bit. In general, any changes you made to that open source code must be licensed the same or compatible to the original license under which you acquired the code.

If you are using this Javascript as a library (didn't include the contents in your own files) and keeping your own new code separate, you can probably use whatever license you want for that new code (with the mentioned exception that changes you made to the JS need to be licensed properly). You'll want to check the license of the JS to determine how to best note that (nearly all licenses require you to state them).

As an example, imagine you wrote some code that uses jQuery and you include the jQuery library in your code. You should probably include in your documentation for this code something like "This project includes jQuery, which is licensed under the MIT license." As you'd be using jQuery only as a library and not including it directly in your code, you wouldn't need to worry about the license for your own unique code.

Keep in mind that a very closed license won't mean that people cannot ignore the words and do what they want, it just provides a way to pursue them legally if they do.

As for your license text, you'll probably want something a little more specific as to what rights you grant the user so they can't say it wasn't clear what you intended. If you're very concerned, please have a lawyer familiar with software licenses write up something for you when you consult with them on if your plans will be okay legally.

[Wellwisher]

@青山 素子 Solid advise. Much respect. You're right copyright will vary from country to country. In my case, since I am from the United Kindom, I have been advised if I use open-source code, declare the "intellectual property/ owner" and denote additional terms of the restricted license to avoid malpractice/ conflicts in E.U.

@Antechinus I favour building open-source but developers need to pay the bills. Restricted licences help protect work so developers retain exclusive rights to future monetisation opportunities/ endorsements.

[Antechinus]

Well if you favour building open source stuff, it may be a good idea to re-think your description of it as "open source bs". That gives the impression that you think the whole concept of open source is stupid.

Anyway, point is that although everyone has to pay the bills, not everyone expects any and all coding they happen to do to contribute towards paying their bills. Sometimes people do stuff without worrying about the bills, because they already have those covered.

[Wellwisher]

"open source bs".

I ought to clarify that then. I am in the process of developing a Youtube Mod (a little weekend fun ) because of this conflict of licence(s), the user "SMF Customization Team" was forcing my hand to publish my mod under "open-source". Others also were also forcing me to publish under an open-source license, which as you put it, I might as well put my hard-work under a "wtfpl license". That's the issue I was referring to when I said "open source bs". It was not an attack on open-source. 

Hence's the whole reason, I seeked advise here and explored my options with the no BS-Inspectors: #青山 素子, #Blaze. 

Thank you for everyones help. 

[Suki]

Wellwisher nobody is forcing you to do anything.  We, as an open source organization favour and encoruage OS but we do not force it on mod/theme authors.

We do, however, require mod authors to specifiy a license, any license, it doesn't have to be an OS one, I repeat, it doesn't have ot be an open source license.  This is to make sure the mod author's coopyright is protected as well as for us to have a clear guide on what to do on X or Y situation (author is gone, redistribution, forks, etc).


As for your specific case, the OS code you are using roughly represents 70% of the total amount of code your mod has, excluding things like package-info.xml and the SMF XML namespace bits in a generic install.xml file.

I understand your concern, however, in this specific case, going with a full closed source license doesn't make much sense as there is little unique code to protect.