October 6, 2005
Help me pick a software license!
I have this one application for which I'd like to find a suiting license and could use your help picking one. Because I don't know the first thing about licensing, here are some general questions first:
- Pretty much all software licenses have the user waive any claims in case the software eats their data or blows up their machine. When the shit hits the fan, does the inclusion or absence of this clause really matter?
- My application is installed by downloading and unzipping an archive and thus has no installation screen. Where do I need to put the license? Mention it above the download links? Display it on the about-screen? Just include it to the documentation? Or must I require my users to click an "Agree" button somewhere?
- If I just expressed my intents in simple words, like "Don't sue me. Don't use for commercial purposes. Yo." What's the downside to that?
About the actual application for which I need a license:
- The core part of the application will remain closed-source for now, but ships with a large number of public API classes for plugin development (these classes also ship in compiled form). I'd like to allow any non-commercial use of the application and the API classes. Which license would do that? I used to think Creative Commons, but Creative Commons licenses are not intended to apply to software.
- The application also ships with a large number of plugins, including the sources of the plugin classes. Again I'd like to allow use for any non-commercial purpose. Do I need to treat the sources different from the binary part of the application?
Any comment that detracts from my state of total cluelessness will be greatly appreciated!
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