MIT license for all published code out of the forum

[infratec]

It would be nice if a notice in the impressum could be placed, which makes clear that all puplished code inside of the forum
is MIT licensed (or an other open license) if not an other license is explicitely mentioned.

So users of code out of the forum are 'save'.

I think all useres can agree.

[Caronte3D]

+1

[Quin]

+1. We should make it pretty clear though, on sites like Stackoverflow, you have to do a ton of digging and honestly the terms are annoying. My personal recommendation for a license is Zlib or Boost, avoids needing to include licenses in your programs

[Bitblazer]

+1
ps: explanation links could also be added like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compariso ... e_licenses

[freak]

This could only apply to code posted from now on. For it to apply to existing posts we would have to get approval from everybody who ever posted something which is impossible. So no matter what, you'd be left with a mix of code where this applies and where it doesn't which kind of defeats the purpose of it.

[Bitblazer]

How about announcing this license "change" in a public announcement and telling everybody who disagree's with it, to delete their old code / postings?

Give everybody 6 months to do it, that seems fair enough and should make this change possible, considering that a posting to a public freely accessible worldwide forum in itself is very much a publication anyway and could mean that stuff otherwise ends up in much worse licenses.

[DarkDragon]

How about announcing this license "change" in a public announcement and telling everybody who disagree's with it, to delete their old code / postings?

It must be opt-in, not opt-out. You cannot introduce contracts retrospectively without consent of both parties.

[Caronte3D]

Include an aclaration saying: "Since <date>" bla, bla, bla...

[PBJim]

Would it be workable if forum contributors just mention their individual licence terms briefly in their signatures? A link to the MIT text, or whatever text is preferred, seems possible. The PureBasic forum perhaps might encourage this within the text shown during signup. In the absence of a licence, it seems reasonable to make contact to request permission from the author.

[Lord]

Pandora's box ...
It's slowly getting crazy here (C-driven).

[IceSoft]

If I use any code snippet from here...I add a link to a text file which is part of the other program (mostly not PureBasic)

[Bitblazer]

How about announcing this license "change" in a public announcement and telling everybody who disagree's with it, to delete their old code / postings?

It must be opt-in, not opt-out. You cannot introduce contracts retrospectively without consent of both parties.

If you really want to go into legal nitpicking, remove the content of everybody who did not agree to the license change on this forum by the end of the period and replace the content of their posting automatically with a link to their posting's content on the wayback archive

So no content would get lost, it would just be one extra click for some articles. But it would allow us to move on and focus on more important problems again. I am sure somebody is bored enough to write such a little script

If I use any code snippet from here...I add a link to a text file which is part of the other program (mostly not PureBasic)

I usually add a link to the forum posting of other people solutions that i used, into the header of my sources. Not only for courtesy, but also in case of problems that show up later.

ps: instead of writing a script that replaces the content of users who did not agree by the end of the agreement period, the announcement of the license change couid just include a link to the wayback archive.

[Axolotl]

IMO this is a really important topic.

Please keep in mind, that in the event of an infringement of an existing copyright or license, only the copyright holder can take active action.
However, this can have very far-reaching legal consequences.
My recommendation for commercial use:
To be on the safe side, you should only use code that contains a clear license (appropriate permission to use). If there is no license, ask the copyright holder and/or do not use the code.
The same applies if an incompatibility is found when checking different licenses.
In general, it can be said that the open source community (with a few exceptions, see Patrick McHardy and Netfilter/iptables) has no interest in prosecuting unintentional "misconduct". Good news, he is stopped now. Which is very good for many manufacturers of embedded devices with Linux.

For forum posts, I would suggest one or more templates, which should then be inserted as headers in the respective codes.
For example, something like (important part starts with Copyright ....)

Code: Select all

;/=====================================================================================================================
;| File        : CommonCodes.pbi 
;| Purpose     : 
;| Target OS : 
;| Created   :  
;| Updated   : 
;|
;| Copyright (c) 2023, 2024 by <My Name or what ever> 
;|
;| License   : <License SPDX identifier> <License Text> 
;\=====================================================================================================================

It is debatable whether one-liners already require a copyright line. I am of the opinion no.

Code: Select all

; --- Copyright (c) 2024 by <My Name or what ever> - License : <MIT | MPL 2 | ... > --- 

Of course you can just say: Do what you want with it.
But it is better (more legally secure) to simply choose a tried and tested license. Important: it's your decision!

[Axolotl]

Pandora's box ...
It's slowly getting crazy here (C-driven).

I don't see it that way. I heard that a lot when I did it years ago in my area of responsibility.
To make a long story short: The risk is in the detail and everyone has to decide for themselves what they want to risk.

<OT>My story: At that time, I was dealing with globally distributed products with all kinds of open source software and a legal dispute that threatened the existence of the company would certainly be difficult.</OT>

[PBJim]

Pandora's box ... It's slowly getting crazy here (C-driven).

I agree this subject can sometimes feel a bit over the top.

As interesting as Tristano's original post on the other thread is and its ideas valid, the German case mentioned with the copyright agency, doesn't seem quite as we might assume from reading it. The subject matter was a Creative Commons photograph that someone had placed into a blog, without crediting the author. The work was made public and therefore could be seen on display, without regard for the author.

... the author of the image had the user warned about the license violation. The user made a comprehensive cease-and-desist declaration, but did not meet all of the demands and filed a declaratory action to declare that the claims did not exist. — https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/lg-fr ... 44741.html

So it appears that the author asked the individual to credit him or remove it, but that wasn't fully complied with, thus a case was made. The agency therefore hadn't in fact found the material by monitoring by stealth as implied in Tristano's post. Notably also, a higher regional Court later found the claims unjustified and the case was cancelled.

This doesn't seem entirely relevant to our work with software, where we sometimes wish to make use of someone else's work — and indeed with their permission on top of that