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>> law, technology, and the space between

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

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Software Licensing

  1. Open Core Ventures Source Available License Version 1.0

    a very short non-production license with twists

  2. PolyForm Noncommercial 2.0.0-pre.2

    shorter, better noncommercial license terms for software

  3. PolyForm Noncommercial 2.0.0-pre.1

    shorter, better noncommercial license terms for software

  4. Blue Oak Contributor License

    it’s just a license

  5. Copyleft Intolerance and the Defining-Open Mind Trap

    forgetting licensing history past, we fail to repeat our successes

  6. PolyForm Countdown

    a simple, solid form for changing your license later

  7. Toward PolyForm Shield Version 2

    streamline and revise for easier reading

  8. A Short, Simple Template for Scheduled Relicensing

    decouple license rules from how we relax them

  9. Amazon Has a Restricted License, Too

    this is not a bad thing

  10. We Were Wrong About the GPLs

    an unsurprising admission in Conservancy v. Vizio

  11. HashiCorp’s New Licensing

    a new benchmark for presenting license change

  12. Type Error: “Democratizing”

    runaway sales speak hits the curb again

  13. Notice by Hyperlink

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

  14. Putting Software in the Public Domain

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

  15. EULAs Aren’t Inherently Evil

    proprietary done right can beat free and open for users

  16. Switching Open Software Terms

    yes, you can switch from MIT to something else

  17. Russia to Legalize Software Piracy

    my show is canceled, business news reports

  18. Fast Path

    cutting-edge legal terms for software license sales

  19. AWS Contributor Licensing Blurb

    another mutation from the cauldron of CLA angst

  20. Single CLA

    taking back contributor licensing for developers

  21. Blue Oak Open Software Licensing Primer

    Theory of Operation, updated and expanded

  22. GPL Had Better be a Contract

    SFC’s Vizio suit brings the right kind of claim

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

    dispelling magical DCO thinking to reveal the system below

  24. Standardize Commercial Software Licensing

    announcing PolyForm Commercial, with a call for help

  25. Open Gaming Deja Vu

    a clear-eyed view of open from 1999

  26. The Origin of the “MIT License”

    how did those famous terms come about?

  27. ml5.js Takes a Stand

    a code of conduct with teeth, in the wild

  28. The War on License Notices

    managing uncertainty at the fringes of open licensing

  29. Copyright Notices Begone

    pointless costs of ancient licenses

  30. PolyForm Defensive is Now PolyForm Shield

    feedback strikes again

  31. Acceptable Use

    different delivery, same rules

  32. Round Robin 1.0.0

    ready for the field

  33. Round Robin License

    new name, new terms, same great idea

  34. PolyForm Noncompete Licenses

    two new, long-awaited forms

  35. Noncompete By Two Other Names

    Why are the last PolyForm licenses taking so long?

  36. Sharetribe Community Public License 1.0, Line by Line

    another everything-but-SaaS license

  37. CERN OHL-S 2.0, Line by Line

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

  38. Not Those Dreams

    Nintendo purges Mario from Dreams

  39. Copyleft Has No Posse

    war is over, want it or not

  40. Dreams Creates a Commons?

    a video game for making video games

  41. Data Under Universal Share-Alike

    limits on effective data copyleft

  42. Open Source Should Come With Warranties

    (from the companies who use it)

  43. What did I just agree to?

    Marc Jones on oddities in OSI-approved licenses

  44. Luis Villa’s Licensing Year in Review

    harassment made the list, and should have

  45. Starting Noncommercial

    famous projects that started noncommercial

  46. Correct and Intuitive Fairness

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

  47. Talking Points: Ethical Licenses

    collecting points and counterpoints

  48. Universal Share-Alike License

    copyleft across different kinds of work

  49. Heather Meeker on “Ethos Licensing”

    free and open is ethos licensing, too

  50. Blue Oak Guide to Copyleft

    short introduction and license families

  51. Blue Oak Test Suite

    test cases for new public licenses

  52. Standards, Patents, Open Source

    towards constructive collaboration across practice communities

  53. No LICENSE

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

  54. Our Ethics, Not Yours

    in defense of Seth Vargo and morality-first licenses

  55. The Tyranny of Time

    licensing gives developers much-needed flexibility

  56. Open Legal Podcast?

    considering an open legal podcast

  57. PolyForm 1.0.0

    standard noncommercial software licenses at last

  58. Operating Environment

    essential industry background for reading open software licenses

  59. SSPL Was Not Commons Clause

    how open licensing blew its biggest opportunity of the 2010s

  60. PolyForm Project

    simple, standard, plain-language software licenses

  61. Mortarboard Licenses

    graduate to new public license terms

  62. Tyranny of Permissionlessness

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

  63. Don’t Rely on OSI Approval

    activist approval does not track practical needs

  64. AFL-3.0 versus OSL-3.0

    a redline (diff) with important network terms highlighted

  65. #wontfix

    endorsements can’t fix the Open Source Definition

  66. Enterprise Ready Open Software License Supplement

    the status quo, plus money for devs

  67. Stairway to Heaven

    repairing broken steps to software license Nirvana

  68. The Diachronic Treadmill License

    automatically reward supporters with copyleft exceptions

  69. License Utopia

    just four licenses for all of open source

  70. Ethical Subcommons Starter Kit

    bringing openness to software of moral concern

  71. Weak or Strong is Wrong

    towards selective or consistent copyleft

  72. Deprecation Notice: MIT and BSD

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

  73. Blue Oak Council

    opening the software commons to everyone

  74. Open Source Software License Reading List

    a comprehensive curriculum for new license wonks

  75. First Thoughts on the Redis Source Available License Agreement

    evident demand for license rules on API boundaries

  76. API Copyleft License 1.0.0

    first release of API-boundary copyleft form

  77. API Copyleft

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

  78. Shared Component License

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

  79. Open Source is Not About You

    a minimal, functionalist view of open source

  80. Open Handicaps

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

  81. Selective Openness

    making money by choosing what to give away

  82. The Open Source Definition as Copyleft Regulation

    an in-depth review of commonly cited criteria

  83. The Copyleft Bust Up

    loopholes, licenses, and realpolitik in open source

  84. How to Speak Copyleft

    the missing vocabulary of copyleft design

  85. Elsewhere: Mapping Open Business Models

    crosspost from the License Zero blog

  86. Seeking Comment: Copyright Notice Recommendation

    first stab at a pragmatic best-practice guide

  87. Indirect Licensing

    dispensing software licenses in the Internet era

  88. Contributor Councils

    relicensing without foundation, BDFL, or unanimity

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

    takedown power for DIY developers

  90. CLAs are Not a Sham

    licensing with friends, improved and improving

  91. Overkill

    doing IP law wrong, and getting away with it

  92. The License Zero Manifesto

    sustainable software in the open

  93. Null Value

    against demise of the hacker public license

  94. Open Source License Business Perception Report

    the pain and confusion of common open licenses, roughly quantified

  95. Against Legislating the Nonobvious

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

  96. The MIT License, Line by Line

    171 words every programmer should understand

  97. 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.

  98. License from Who?

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

  99. The Berneout Pledge

    Sucks less than CLAs!

  100. First Read: The Fair Source License

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

  101. React Patent Redline

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