placeholder

/dev/lawyer

>> law, technology, and the space between

All content by Kyle E. Mitchell, who is not your lawyer.

You can subscribe via RSS/Atom or e-mail and browse other blogs.

Software Licensing

  1. PolyForm Noncommercial 2.0.0-pre.3

    steps toward 2.0.0

  2. Open Core Ventures Source Available License Version 1.0

    a very short non-production license with twists

  3. PolyForm Noncommercial 2.0.0-pre.2

    shorter, better noncommercial license terms for software

  4. PolyForm Noncommercial 2.0.0-pre.1

    shorter, better noncommercial license terms for software

  5. Blue Oak Contributor License

    it’s just a license

  6. Copyleft Intolerance and the Defining-Open Mind Trap

    forgetting licensing history past, we fail to repeat our successes

  7. PolyForm Countdown

    a simple, solid form for changing your license later

  8. Toward PolyForm Shield Version 2

    streamline and revise for easier reading

  9. A Short, Simple Template for Scheduled Relicensing

    decouple license rules from how we relax them

  10. Amazon Has a Restricted License, Too

    this is not a bad thing

  11. We Were Wrong About the GPLs

    an unsurprising admission in Conservancy v. Vizio

  12. HashiCorp’s New Licensing

    a new benchmark for presenting license change

  13. Type Error: “Democratizing”

    runaway sales speak hits the curb again

  14. Notice by Hyperlink

    can’t we just link to the licenses file for our JavaScript?

  15. Putting Software in the Public Domain

    if you want “waive” or “dedicate”, you should probably just “license”

  16. EULAs Aren’t Inherently Evil

    proprietary done right can beat free and open for users

  17. Switching Open Software Terms

    yes, you can switch from MIT to something else

  18. Russia to Legalize Software Piracy

    my show is canceled, business news reports

  19. Fast Path

    cutting-edge legal terms for software license sales

  20. AWS Contributor Licensing Blurb

    another mutation from the cauldron of CLA angst

  21. Single CLA

    taking back contributor licensing for developers

  22. Blue Oak Open Software Licensing Primer

    Theory of Operation, updated and expanded

  23. GPL Had Better be a Contract

    SFC’s Vizio suit brings the right kind of claim

  24. The Developer Certificate of Origin is Not a Contributor License Agreement

    dispelling magical DCO thinking to reveal the system below

  25. Standardize Commercial Software Licensing

    announcing PolyForm Commercial, with a call for help

  26. Open Gaming Deja Vu

    a clear-eyed view of open from 1999

  27. The Origin of the “MIT License”

    how did those famous terms come about?

  28. ml5.js Takes a Stand

    a code of conduct with teeth, in the wild

  29. The War on License Notices

    managing uncertainty at the fringes of open licensing

  30. Copyright Notices Begone

    pointless costs of ancient licenses

  31. PolyForm Defensive is Now PolyForm Shield

    feedback strikes again

  32. Acceptable Use

    different delivery, same rules

  33. Round Robin 1.0.0

    ready for the field

  34. Round Robin License

    new name, new terms, same great idea

  35. PolyForm Noncompete Licenses

    two new, long-awaited forms

  36. Noncompete By Two Other Names

    Why are the last PolyForm licenses taking so long?

  37. Sharetribe Community Public License 1.0, Line by Line

    another everything-but-SaaS license

  38. CERN OHL-S 2.0, Line by Line

    the open share-alike hardware license we actually need now?

  39. Not Those Dreams

    Nintendo purges Mario from Dreams

  40. Copyleft Has No Posse

    war is over, want it or not

  41. Dreams Creates a Commons?

    a video game for making video games

  42. Data Under Universal Share-Alike

    limits on effective data copyleft

  43. Open Source Should Come With Warranties

    (from the companies who use it)

  44. What did I just agree to?

    Marc Jones on oddities in OSI-approved licenses

  45. Luis Villa’s Licensing Year in Review

    harassment made the list, and should have

  46. Starting Noncommercial

    famous projects that started noncommercial

  47. Correct and Intuitive Fairness

    How can a license say what “fair” is ahead of time?

  48. Talking Points: Ethical Licenses

    collecting points and counterpoints

  49. Universal Share-Alike License

    copyleft across different kinds of work

  50. Heather Meeker on “Ethos Licensing”

    free and open is ethos licensing, too

  51. Blue Oak Guide to Copyleft

    short introduction and license families

  52. Blue Oak Test Suite

    test cases for new public licenses

  53. Standards, Patents, Open Source

    towards constructive collaboration across practice communities

  54. No LICENSE

    they won’t see your funding plea if they never look

  55. Our Ethics, Not Yours

    in defense of Seth Vargo and morality-first licenses

  56. The Tyranny of Time

    licensing gives developers much-needed flexibility

  57. Open Legal Podcast?

    considering an open legal podcast

  58. PolyForm 1.0.0

    standard noncommercial software licenses at last

  59. Operating Environment

    essential industry background for reading open software licenses

  60. SSPL Was Not Commons Clause

    how open licensing blew its biggest opportunity of the 2010s

  61. PolyForm Project

    simple, standard, plain-language software licenses

  62. Mortarboard Licenses

    graduate to new public license terms

  63. Tyranny of Permissionlessness

    open source’s narrow focus further empowers those with other ways to exclude

  64. Don’t Rely on OSI Approval

    activist approval does not track practical needs

  65. AFL-3.0 versus OSL-3.0

    a redline (diff) with important network terms highlighted

  66. #wontfix

    endorsements can’t fix the Open Source Definition

  67. Enterprise Ready Open Software License Supplement

    the status quo, plus money for devs

  68. Stairway to Heaven

    repairing broken steps to software license Nirvana

  69. The Diachronic Treadmill License

    automatically reward supporters with copyleft exceptions

  70. License Utopia

    just four licenses for all of open source

  71. Ethical Subcommons Starter Kit

    bringing openness to software of moral concern

  72. Weak or Strong is Wrong

    towards selective or consistent copyleft

  73. Deprecation Notice: MIT and BSD

    it’s time to retire thirty-year-old academic licenses

  74. Blue Oak Council

    opening the software commons to everyone

  75. Open Source Software License Reading List

    a comprehensive curriculum for new license wonks

  76. First Thoughts on the Redis Source Available License Agreement

    evident demand for license rules on API boundaries

  77. API Copyleft License 1.0.0

    first release of API-boundary copyleft form

  78. API Copyleft

    functionality, interfaces, and line drawing in a new copyleft paradigm

  79. Shared Component License

    first shot at a short, plain license in the vein of Mongo’s SSPL

  80. Open Source is Not About You

    a minimal, functionalist view of open source

  81. Open Handicaps

    Did permissive used to advantage open work like copyleft does today?

  82. Selective Openness

    making money by choosing what to give away

  83. The Open Source Definition as Copyleft Regulation

    an in-depth review of commonly cited criteria

  84. The Copyleft Bust Up

    loopholes, licenses, and realpolitik in open source

  85. How to Speak Copyleft

    the missing vocabulary of copyleft design

  86. Elsewhere: Mapping Open Business Models

    crosspost from the License Zero blog

  87. Seeking Comment: Copyright Notice Recommendation

    first stab at a pragmatic best-practice guide

  88. Indirect Licensing

    dispensing software licenses in the Internet era

  89. Contributor Councils

    relicensing without foundation, BDFL, or unanimity

  90. Enforce Open Source Licenses with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

    takedown power for DIY developers

  91. CLAs are Not a Sham

    licensing with friends, improved and improving

  92. Overkill

    doing IP law wrong, and getting away with it

  93. The License Zero Manifesto

    sustainable software in the open

  94. Null Value

    against demise of the hacker public license

  95. Open Source License Business Perception Report

    the pain and confusion of common open licenses, roughly quantified

  96. Against Legislating the Nonobvious

    short-order feedback on the default contributor license in GitHub’s draft terms of service

  97. The MIT License, Line by Line

    171 words every programmer should understand

  98. 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.

  99. License from Who?

    Safe open-source licensing means more than a LICENSE file.

  100. The Berneout Pledge

    Sucks less than CLAs!

  101. First Read: The Fair Source License

    Text and my first thoughts on a new, non-open source form license

  102. React Patent Redline

    Changes to Facebook’s patent grant for React, Flux, Immutable, &c.