Re: expert advice on publishing software needed

Actually, the public domain option is non-ideal in the US context.
The reason is that without a license of some sort, it is nearly
impossible for people to interpret what they can legally do with yopur
code, or whether you retain the right to object to their uses
(meaning, basically, people will be less likely to use your code if
they are risk-averse).  There is no such thing as public domain in a
country with automatic copyright registration.  Things are different
in the EU, I think, though I have a weak understanding of it.

If you want to allow maximum freedom to make use of, improve, modify,
and re-distribute your Macros, then you should release them under the
GPL with your name (or your publisher's name if they claim the rights
to them, and you can conveince them to release them) on the copyright.

You could also use the Creative Commons licenses, which are easier to
understand, but are really not intended to cover software-- and so if
there are in fact any library re-use issues or other issues specific
to software, you are probably still better off with the GPL.

hope this helps,
ck

On Thu, Nov 04, 2004 at 09:31:14AM -0500, Karim R. Lakhani wrote:
> Carlo Daffara wrote:
> >On Tue, 2 Nov 2004, Jochen Gläser wrote:
> >
> le of that).
> >
> >>2) Do I need to / can I put some Copyleft (or whatever) on it to keep it
> >>free, or can it stay there 'forever free' without a license?
> >
> >You have to explicitly describe the status of the code, and which 
> >restrictions (if any) you want to add. For example, you may want to use 
> >the GPL license, or a Creative Commons one, depending on the desired 
> >target audience.
> >best regards
> >                      
> You can also leave it in the public domain with no licenses what so ever - 
> but if you care about credit then one of the numerous open source or cc 
> licenses might make sense.
> 
> Karim R. Lakhani
> MIT Sloan | The Boston Consulting Group
> Mobile: +1 (617) 851-1224
> http://spoudaiospaizen.net
> http://web.mit.edu/lakhani/www | http://opensource.mit.edu 
> 
> 
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