L2J Server GPL3 license. Truly open source?
Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 2:21 pm
Recently I started making an open source project on github and I was prohibited to select a license for it.
Before making any unthoughtful actions I started googling about licenses and what are the legal concerns involved.
If anyone wants to check it out I suggest the following sites.
https://choosealicense.com
https://www.softwarefreedom.org
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
https://opensource.org
https://www.blackducksoftware.com/top-o ... e-licenses
After researching I understood that I had some real problem.
On this new project I used the L2jServer Rnd class to generate random results.
According to GPL3 anyone who distributes your code or a derivative work to make the source available under the same terms.
So what if someone wanted to use my project to make some kind of proprietary software? GPL3 is all about being against proprietary software.
But in my mind that is not truly open source. I want my work to be used by companies even if they do not want to share their sources when releasing a product. Doing so would be absurd for them.
So the idea of using the L2jServer Rnd class was too risky to use and as a solution made a new class on my own.
At this point, in addition to the obvious flaw in truly free to use by anyone logic, I also found that there are loopholes in GPL3 to protect programmers. The more I read, GPL3 looked distasteful as a truly open source license and more of a copyleft considering license.
A truly open source license should let people do anything they want with your code as long as they provide attribution back to you and not be forced to share their work when making it public. Personally, I made my new project under the MIT license that does exactly that. I could elaborate more why I did not choose to use Apache, CC0 or any other license over MIT, but I try to keep this post short.
I do not blame L2jServer for using "the wrong" license, it is just that noone bothered to see what newer options are out there.
As far as I can tell, the newer, truly open source licenses, came much later than GPL after many legal acts and conserns.
Finally I merely propose that The Team of the project, as the legally accountable persons for such an action, should consider changing the license to MIT. It reflects (a) what L2jServer was hopefully intended to stand for and (b) the truly open source impression everyone takes for granted by getting involved with this project. Only a permissive license can reflect that, using a copyleft license like GPL3 may suggest opposite intentions.
Before making any unthoughtful actions I started googling about licenses and what are the legal concerns involved.
If anyone wants to check it out I suggest the following sites.
https://choosealicense.com
https://www.softwarefreedom.org
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
https://opensource.org
https://www.blackducksoftware.com/top-o ... e-licenses
After researching I understood that I had some real problem.
On this new project I used the L2jServer Rnd class to generate random results.
According to GPL3 anyone who distributes your code or a derivative work to make the source available under the same terms.
So what if someone wanted to use my project to make some kind of proprietary software? GPL3 is all about being against proprietary software.
But in my mind that is not truly open source. I want my work to be used by companies even if they do not want to share their sources when releasing a product. Doing so would be absurd for them.
So the idea of using the L2jServer Rnd class was too risky to use and as a solution made a new class on my own.
At this point, in addition to the obvious flaw in truly free to use by anyone logic, I also found that there are loopholes in GPL3 to protect programmers. The more I read, GPL3 looked distasteful as a truly open source license and more of a copyleft considering license.
A truly open source license should let people do anything they want with your code as long as they provide attribution back to you and not be forced to share their work when making it public. Personally, I made my new project under the MIT license that does exactly that. I could elaborate more why I did not choose to use Apache, CC0 or any other license over MIT, but I try to keep this post short.
I do not blame L2jServer for using "the wrong" license, it is just that noone bothered to see what newer options are out there.
As far as I can tell, the newer, truly open source licenses, came much later than GPL after many legal acts and conserns.
Finally I merely propose that The Team of the project, as the legally accountable persons for such an action, should consider changing the license to MIT. It reflects (a) what L2jServer was hopefully intended to stand for and (b) the truly open source impression everyone takes for granted by getting involved with this project. Only a permissive license can reflect that, using a copyleft license like GPL3 may suggest opposite intentions.