Licensing
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26 February 2021
The Origin of the “MIT License”
how did those famous terms come about?
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20 February 2021
Cross License Foundations
decentralized stewardship of collaborative projects
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30 January 2021
The Chalkeaters’ License
effective folk licensing in the wild
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12 January 2021
ml5.js Takes a Stand
a code of conduct with teeth, in the wild
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27 December 2020
The War on License Notices
managing uncertainty at the fringes of open licensing
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21 October 2020
Copyright Notices Begone
pointless costs of ancient licenses
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16 June 2020
PolyForm Defensive is Now PolyForm Shield
feedback strikes again
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11 June 2020
Acceptable Use
different delivery, same rules
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01 June 2020
Round Robin 1.0.0
ready for the field
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26 May 2020
Round Robin License
new name, new terms, same great idea
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14 May 2020
PolyForm Noncompete Licenses
two new, long-awaited forms
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07 April 2020
Open COVID Pledge
public licensing for pandemic response
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04 April 2020
Noncompete By Two Other Names
Why are the last PolyForm licenses taking so long?
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04 April 2020
Sharetribe Community Public License 1.0, Line by Line
another everything-but-SaaS license
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01 April 2020
CERN OHL-S 2.0, Line by Line
the open share-alike hardware license we actually need now?
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31 March 2020
Medtronic’s PB560 Ventilator License, Line by Line
medical device company devises copyleft license
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24 March 2020
Not Those Dreams
Nintendo purges Mario from Dreams
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07 March 2020
Copyleft Has No Posse
war is over, want it or not
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04 March 2020
Dreams Creates a Commons?
a video game for making video games
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10 February 2020
Data Under Universal Share-Alike
limits on effective data copyleft
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27 January 2020
Open Source Should Come With Warranties
(from the companies who use it)
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23 January 2020
What did I just agree to?
Marc Jones on oddities in OSI-approved licenses
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23 January 2020
Luis Villa’s Licensing Year in Review
harassment made the list, and should have
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09 January 2020
Starting Noncommercial
famous projects that started noncommercial
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02 December 2019
Correct and Intuitive Fairness
How can a license say what “fair” is ahead of time?
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24 November 2019
Talking Points: Ethical Licenses
collecting points and counterpoints
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22 November 2019
Universal Share-Alike License
copyleft across different kinds of work
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09 November 2019
Heather Meeker on “Ethos Licensing”
free and open is ethos licensing, too
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04 November 2019
Blue Oak Guide to Copyleft
short introduction and license families
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16 October 2019
Blue Oak Test Suite
test cases for new public licenses
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12 October 2019
XLC Building Blocks
essential concepts and vocabulary for cross-license collaboratives
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05 October 2019
Cross-License Collaboratives
decentralizing contributor license agreements
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03 October 2019
Standards, Patents, Open Source
towards constructive collaboration across practice communities
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28 September 2019
No LICENSE
they won’t see your funding plea if they never look
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28 September 2019
Our Ethics, Not Yours
in defense of Seth Vargo and morality-first licenses
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26 September 2019
The Tyranny of Time
licensing gives developers much-needed flexibility
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10 September 2019
Open Legal Podcast?
considering an open legal podcast
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05 September 2019
Changeblog
a few thoughts on a friend’s podcast appearance
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12 July 2019
PolyForm 1.0.0
standard noncommercial software licenses at last
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27 June 2019
Heather Meeker on Patent Risk Allocation
unique compilation of arguments and dynamics
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15 June 2019
Operating Environment
essential industry background for reading open software licenses
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13 June 2019
SSPL Was Not Commons Clause
how open licensing blew its biggest opportunity of the 2010s
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30 May 2019
PolyForm Project
simple, standard, plain-language software licenses
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21 May 2019
Mortarboard Licenses
graduate to new public license terms
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08 May 2019
Tyranny of Permissionlessness
open source’s narrow focus further empowers those with other ways to exclude
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05 May 2019
Don’t Rely on OSI Approval
activist approval does not track practical needs
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29 April 2019
AFL-3.0 versus OSL-3.0
a redline (diff) with important network terms highlighted
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23 April 2019
#wontfix
endorsements can’t fix the Open Source Definition
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11 April 2019
Enterprise Ready Open Software License Supplement
the status quo, plus money for devs
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06 April 2019
Stairway to Heaven
repairing broken steps to software license Nirvana
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18 March 2019
The Diachronic Treadmill License
automatically reward supporters with copyleft exceptions
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17 March 2019
License Utopia
just four licenses for all of open source
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15 March 2019
Ethical Subcommons Starter Kit
bringing openness to software of moral concern
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11 March 2019
Weak or Strong is Wrong
towards selective or consistent copyleft
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09 March 2019
Deprecation Notice: MIT and BSD
it’s time to retire thirty-year-old academic licenses
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07 March 2019
Blue Oak Council
opening the software commons to everyone
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24 February 2019
Open Source Software License Reading List
a comprehensive curriculum for new license wonks
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22 February 2019
First Thoughts on the Redis Source Available License Agreement
evident demand for license rules on API boundaries
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22 February 2019
API Copyleft License 1.0.0
first release of API-boundary copyleft form
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30 January 2019
API Copyleft
functionality, interfaces, and line drawing in a new copyleft paradigm
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12 January 2019
Shared Component License
first shot at a short, plain license in the vein of Mongo’s SSPL
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05 December 2018
Open Source is Not About You
a minimal, functionalist view of open source
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04 December 2018
Open Handicaps
Did permissive used to advantage open work like copyleft does today?
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12 November 2018
Selective Openness
making money by choosing what to give away
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05 November 2018
The Open Source Definition as Copyleft Regulation
an in-depth review of commonly cited criteria
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04 November 2018
The Copyleft Bust Up
loopholes, licenses, and realpolitik in open source
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24 October 2018
How to Speak Copyleft
the missing vocabulary of copyleft design
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17 October 2018
Elsewhere: Mapping Open Business Models
crosspost from the License Zero blog
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07 October 2018
Seeking Comment: Copyright Notice Recommendation
first stab at a pragmatic best-practice guide
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01 October 2018
Indirect Licensing
dispensing software licenses in the Internet era
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30 September 2018
Contributor Councils
relicensing without foundation, BDFL, or unanimity
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02 September 2018
Enforce Open Source Licenses with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
takedown power for DIY developers
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16 January 2018
Public Domain Chronicle
a fast, easy, and free way to secure scientific methods and findings for the public domain
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09 January 2018
I Have Another Blog
you may want to subscribe on License Zero, too
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06 January 2018
CLAs are Not a Sham
licensing with friends, improved and improving
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26 September 2017
Overkill
doing IP law wrong, and getting away with it
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12 September 2017
The License Zero Manifesto
sustainable software in the open
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31 August 2017
Null Value
against demise of the hacker public license
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29 March 2017
Open Source License Business Perception Report
the pain and confusion of common open licenses, roughly quantified
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16 February 2017
Against Legislating the Nonobvious
short-order feedback on the default contributor license in GitHub’s draft terms of service
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21 September 2016
The MIT License, Line by Line
171 words every programmer should understand
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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.
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13 May 2016
License from Who?
Safe open-source licensing means more than a LICENSE file.
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18 April 2016
The Berneout Pledge
Sucks less than CLAs!
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30 March 2016
First Read: The Fair Source License
Text and my first thoughts on a new, non-open source form license
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25 September 2015
React Patent Redline
Changes to Facebook’s patent grant for React, Flux, Immutable, &c.