Open Source Initiative OSI - The MIT License:Licensing
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The MIT License
Copyright (c) <year> <copyright holders>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.
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Comments
Copyleft or not?
>The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
Then why does Wikipedia state (unreferenced) this license is NOT copyleft? Does Wikipedia need fixing? Is there a reliable source about this?
Sublicensing
If I obtain code under the MIT license, then make changes to it. Can I sub-license it under my own terms? Or do I have to still include their original MIT license with my software.
Basically I'm creating software that contains MIT licensed code, but I want to sell it with my own sub-license for the end users so they can't redistribute it for free.
How To Comply
I'd like to use some MIT-licensed xml-parsing code in my iPhone game. This seems to require that I package the MIT license with the application. However, my iPhone app does not include extensive documentation and my demographic will not want legal notices shoved in their faces.
My boss is afraid of using this code because our company is very small and doesn't have the money for any type of legal battle. What is the best way to comply with the MIT license in an iPhone app without compromising user experience?
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Samuel Fattizi
Referring to license via URL
Is it sufficient to refer to the license via URL? I want to modify and use some code that only refers to the license via:
/* Licensed under the MIT license: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php */
Is it OK to integrate code within a larger code-base (e.g. using some MIT-licensed JavaScript within a larger javascript library) with a wrapper / comment inserted in the appropriate place:
/* Function foobar derived from MIT-licensed code: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php */
Note: I've no idea of the legal significance of changing "Licensed under the MIT license" to "Derived from MIT licensed code" - hence the question.
I think so.
I am not a lawyer, but I think it's good enough. A lot of JavaScript out there does not put the entire licence blurb there to save space. Pedantics (like the Debian project) also need a "Copyright by Foo Bar, 2009" statement.
Regarding the wrapper - it should be OK, but make sure you also reproduce the copyright blurb and a link to the one who originated it. I should note that MIT/X11-licensed code can be sub-licensed to any other licence.
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Shlomi Fish, http://www.shlomifish.org/
When Chuck Norris uses Gentoo, "emerge kde" finishes in under a minute. A computer cannot afford to keep Chuck waiting for too long.
Another question
If we are making a closed source application, selling this application for profit, include this license in the open source license file, are we breaking any laws?
Thank you for your time.
It's perfectly OK.
Feel free to use MIT/X11 licensed code in your non-open-source apps. You are allowed to link to such code from your application or even change the licence of derivative works (see the permission to "sub-license"). What you may need to do is give attribution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_%28copyright%29
I.e: say "libfunctionality , Copyright by J. Random Hacker, 2009" somewhere. But it would be hard to avoid giving attribution in practically all copyrighted open source code out there.
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Shlomi Fish, http://www.shlomifish.org/
When Chuck Norris uses Gentoo, "emerge kde" finishes in under a minute. A computer cannot afford to keep Chuck waiting for too long.
A Question
I downloaded a software under this License.
Upon the original software I have made several changes.
I would like to release our it with those changes.
What kind of licensing can it go with ?(with the Same license ?)
Is it possible to keep the changes under my name ?
How can i use this?
If i want distribute open source system CMS on my site http://correct.com.ua/ can i use this license?
Yes, of course you can use
Yes, of course you can use this license. Just include the text of the license in a file called "LICENSE", and make reference to it in a file called "README".
Additional Clause Requested
As stated the law allows abuses of software. Require a clause that no malicious uses may be entered into with said program conditional of any use.
Martin M. Musatov
The problem with a clause
The problem with a clause like that is: who gets to define what is malicious use? What happens if that entity ceases to make those decisions?