Licensing
21 October 2020
Copyright Notices Begone
pointless costs of ancient licenses
16 June 2020
PolyForm Defensive is Now PolyForm Shield
feedback strikes again
11 June 2020
Acceptable Use
different delivery, same rules
01 June 2020
Round Robin 1.0.0
ready for the field
26 May 2020
Round Robin License
new name, new terms, same great idea
14 May 2020
PolyForm Noncompete Licenses
two new, long-awaited forms
07 April 2020
Open COVID Pledge
public licensing for pandemic response
04 April 2020
Noncompete By Two Other Names
Why are the last PolyForm licenses taking so long?
04 April 2020
Sharetribe Community Public License 1.0, Line by Line
another everything-but-SaaS license
01 April 2020
CERN OHL-S 2.0, Line by Line
the open share-alike hardware license we actually need now?
31 March 2020
Medtronic’s PB560 Ventilator License, Line by Line
medical device company devises copyleft license
24 March 2020
Not Those Dreams
Nintendo purges Mario from Dreams
07 March 2020
Copyleft Has No Posse
war is over, want it or not
04 March 2020
Dreams Creates a Commons?
a video game for making video games
10 February 2020
Data Under Universal Share-Alike
limits on effective data copyleft
27 January 2020
Open Source Should Come With Warranties
(from the companies who use it)
23 January 2020
What did I just agree to?
Marc Jones on oddities in OSI-approved licenses
23 January 2020
Luis Villa’s Licensing Year in Review
harassment made the list, and should have
09 January 2020
Starting Noncommercial
famous projects that started noncommercial
02 December 2019
Correct and Intuitive Fairness
How can a license say what “fair” is ahead of time?
24 November 2019
Talking Points: Ethical Licenses
collecting points and counterpoints
22 November 2019
Universal Share-Alike License
copyleft across different kinds of work
09 November 2019
Heather Meeker on “Ethos Licensing”
free and open is ethos licensing, too
04 November 2019
Blue Oak Guide to Copyleft
short introduction and license families
16 October 2019
Blue Oak Test Suite
test cases for new public licenses
12 October 2019
XLC Building Blocks
essential concepts and vocabulary for cross-license collaboratives
05 October 2019
Cross-License Collaboratives
decentralizing contributor license agreements
03 October 2019
Standards, Patents, Open Source
towards constructive collaboration across practice communities
28 September 2019
No LICENSE
they won’t see your funding plea if they never look
28 September 2019
Our Ethics, Not Yours
in defense of Seth Vargo and morality-first licenses
26 September 2019
The Tyranny of Time
licensing gives developers much-needed flexibility
10 September 2019
Open Legal Podcast?
considering an open legal podcast
05 September 2019
Changeblog
a few thoughts on a friend’s podcast appearance
12 July 2019
PolyForm 1.0.0
standard noncommercial software licenses at last
27 June 2019
Heather Meeker on Patent Risk Allocation
unique compilation of arguments and dynamics
15 June 2019
Operating Environment
essential industry background for reading open software licenses
13 June 2019
SSPL Was Not Commons Clause
how open licensing blew its biggest opportunity of the 2010s
30 May 2019
PolyForm Project
simple, standard, plain-language software licenses
21 May 2019
Mortarboard Licenses
graduate to new public license terms
08 May 2019
Tyranny of Permissionlessness
open source’s narrow focus further empowers those with other ways to exclude
05 May 2019
Don’t Rely on OSI Approval
activist approval does not track practical needs
29 April 2019
AFL-3.0 versus OSL-3.0
a redline (diff) with important network terms highlighted
23 April 2019
#wontfix
endorsements can’t fix the Open Source Definition
11 April 2019
Enterprise Ready Open Software License Supplement
the status quo, plus money for devs
06 April 2019
Stairway to Heaven
repairing broken steps to software license Nirvana
18 March 2019
The Diachronic Treadmill License
automatically reward supporters with copyleft exceptions
17 March 2019
License Utopia
just four licenses for all of open source
15 March 2019
Ethical Subcommons Starter Kit
bringing openness to software of moral concern
11 March 2019
Weak or Strong is Wrong
towards selective or consistent copyleft
09 March 2019
Deprecation Notice: MIT and BSD
it’s time to retire thirty-year-old academic licenses
07 March 2019
Blue Oak Council
opening the software commons to everyone
24 February 2019
Open Source Software License Reading List
a comprehensive curriculum for new license wonks
22 February 2019
First Thoughts on the Redis Source Available License Agreement
evident demand for license rules on API boundaries
22 February 2019
API Copyleft License 1.0.0
first release of API-boundary copyleft form
30 January 2019
API Copyleft
functionality, interfaces, and line drawing in a new copyleft paradigm
12 January 2019
Shared Component License
first shot at a short, plain license in the vein of Mongo’s SSPL
05 December 2018
Open Source is Not About You
a minimal, functionalist view of open source
04 December 2018
Open Handicaps
Did permissive used to advantage open work like copyleft does today?
12 November 2018
Selective Openness
making money by choosing what to give away
05 November 2018
The Open Source Definition as Copyleft Regulation
an in-depth review of commonly cited criteria
04 November 2018
The Copyleft Bust Up
loopholes, licenses, and realpolitik in open source
24 October 2018
How to Speak Copyleft
the missing vocabulary of copyleft design
17 October 2018
Elsewhere: Mapping Open Business Models
crosspost from the License Zero blog
07 October 2018
Seeking Comment: Copyright Notice Recommendation
first stab at a pragmatic best-practice guide
01 October 2018
Indirect Licensing
dispensing software licenses in the Internet era
30 September 2018
Contributor Councils
relicensing without foundation, BDFL, or unanimity
02 September 2018
Enforce Open Source Licenses with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
takedown power for DIY developers
16 January 2018
Public Domain Chronicle
a fast, easy, and free way to secure scientific methods and findings for the public domain
09 January 2018
I Have Another Blog
you may want to subscribe on License Zero, too
06 January 2018
CLAs are Not a Sham
licensing with friends, improved and improving
26 September 2017
Overkill
doing IP law wrong, and getting away with it
12 September 2017
The License Zero Manifesto
sustainable software in the open
31 August 2017
Null Value
against demise of the hacker public license
29 March 2017
Open Source License Business Perception Report
the pain and confusion of common open licenses, roughly quantified
16 February 2017
Against Legislating the Nonobvious
short-order feedback on the default contributor license in GitHub’s draft terms of service
21 September 2016
The MIT License, Line by Line
171 words every programmer should understand
13 May 2016
I Don’t Want to Know What “Open Source” Means
I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all on GitHub.
13 May 2016
License from Who?
Safe open-source licensing means more than a LICENSE file.
18 April 2016
The Berneout Pledge
Sucks less than CLAs!
30 March 2016
First Read: The Fair Source License
Text and my first thoughts on a new, non-open source form license
25 September 2015
React Patent Redline
Changes to Facebook’s patent grant for React, Flux, Immutable, &c.