PureBasic Forums - English

I have a pretty successful little app that is getting used more and more in the Linux workd. I've had over 15K downloads so far. I am often asked what license is it released under. I know that it can never be open source since the compiler is not open. But surely there is a license out there that lets a user have full control of the binary app for free.

Any suggestions?

Do you care about getting source code back if they change stuff?

Use GPL if you want to require open source derivatives, use BSD-style license or MIT-style license if you don't care about keeping derivative works open source (ie. Someone else can take your work and sell it non-open)

You can make something open-source even if the compiler isn't open. But most(all) linux distros wont include something in their package repos unless its 100% open and can be compiled by an open-source compiler.

> it can never be open source since the compiler is not open

What compiler? PureBasic's? That has nothing to do with your app, even if
your app is released as open-source. Open-source means your source is
free, not the compiler on which it's compiled.

Anyway, you can create your own license if need be. There's no law that
says you have to use an existing license (eg. GPL or whatever).

A pre-existing mainstream license does however have the benefit of being tested by law in most cases.

dracflamloc wrote:A pre-existing mainstream license does however have the benefit of being tested by law in most cases.

yap.. that's the point

@beach

have a look at CreativeCommons

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

I like the BSD-ones.

But it depends on which philosophy you have.

The real FSF - Freaks insist on GNU GPL v2, which can be good but isn't all the tim, IMHO.
If you ever want to write a commercial program for Linux, you always have to watch out not to break GNU - Law. Can be anoying, I think.

BSD-Style or LGPL allows you to write commercial code. BSD is cool, because it insists that the "inventor" of the code is always mentioned. So you at least earn fame.

Good example: Lazarus the FreePascal IDE is LGPL, because they want or accept commercial stuff. So more companies get involved in Linux what is good for the community.

I guess the CC , which Kaeru mentioned, is also good - becaus the inventor must be informed and mentioned (if I remember correctly).

Also possible: peaceware (for non-military purpos), charity-ware (like vim!), ....

Thanks guys! This is just what I needed. I will take a look at all the suggestions above.

You're welcome!
Btw: what kinda program we're talking about?

I just wanted to add my opinion:
Do not use any of the BSD/MIT style licences if you don't want anybody else to use your code to create a closed source application.

GPL is definitlely the best choice for Applications.

bembulak wrote:You're welcome!
Btw: what kinda program we're talking about?

It's a GUI for Hamachi on Linux. The original author of Hamachi adopted it as the official unofficial GUI. He put a link to my site and credited my name on the Hamachi download page. I have an old screenshot on my web page:
http://www.penguinbyte.com/software/ghamachi/

I just updated last weekend when Fred released beta 4. I plan to add chat to it one of these days. At the moment, I want to see if people are able to use it on the newer Linux distros and that it is stable. I've only had one reply so far and it was good.