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and are structured grant (permissions) conditioned on (conditions) with limitations Permissions coming first combats mistaken but apparently widespread impression that licenses impose conditions, even such that without a license, there would be no conditions/work would be in the public domain. Requirements->Conditions emphasizes that they are pertinent if one wants to take advantage of permissions. Forbiddens->Limitations is more accurate: in most cases licenses don't give permission to hold licensors liable, in some cases to use licensors' trademarks or patents, but a licensee does not lose the permissions granted by the license if the licensee holds licensor liable, etc. Also emphasizes that there are limitatations on the license grant, not that the license imposes prohibitions. The most concise place to see both the rename and reorder is in _includes/license-overview.html I did not reorder the appearance of the groups of properties in license source files (.txt files in _licenses) as those orderings are not used to render anything on the webiste. Might do so later. |
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| _licenses | ||
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| script | ||
| spec | ||
| _config.yml | ||
| .bowerrc | ||
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| .rubocop.yml | ||
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| about.md | ||
| bower.json | ||
| CNAME | ||
| CONTRIBUTING.md | ||
| favicon.ico | ||
| Gemfile | ||
| index.html | ||
| LICENSE.md | ||
| licenses.html | ||
| no-license.md | ||
| non-software.md | ||
| Rakefile | ||
| README.md | ||
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| terms-of-service.md | ||
Choosealicense.com
Like a Choose Your Own Adventure site, but only much less interesting.
Intro
A lot of repositories on GitHub.com don't have a license. GitHub provides a license chooser, but if you don't know anything about licenses, how are you supposed to make an informed decision?
ChooseALicense.com is designed to help people make an informed decision about licenses by demystifying license choices through non-judgmental guidance.
Immediate Goals
- Non-judgmental. Our goal is to help you find a license that meets your goals.
- Well designed, but that goes without saying.
- The homepage should have just enough to help 99% of folks make a decision.
- For the 1%, the site will contain a list of licenses common to specific communities and situations.
- Not comprehensive. Seems like an odd goal, but there are a bajillion licenses out there. We're going to have to filter that down to a small list of those that matter.
Run It On Your Machine
git clone https://github.com/github/choosealicense.com.git
cd choosealicense.com
script/bootstrap
script/server
Open http://localhost:4000 in your favorite browser.
Adding a license
For information on adding a license, see the CONTRIBUTING file.
License metadata
Licenses sit in the /_licenses folder. Each license has YAML front matter describing the license's properties. The body of the file contains the text of the license in plain text. The available metadata fields are:
Required fields
title- The SPDX-compliant, human-readable license namesource- The URL to the license source textdescription- A human-readable description of the licensehow- Instructions on how to implement the licensepermissions- Bulleted list of permission rulesconditions- Bulleted list of condition ruleslimitations- Bulleted list of limitation rules
Optional fields
note- Additional information about the licensesusing- A list of notable projects using the license in the form ofproject_name: "url"hidden- Whether the license is hidden from the license list (defaults to true)redirect_from- Relative path(s) to redirect to the license from, to prevent breaking old URLsfeatured- Whether the license should be featured on the main page (defaults to false)nickname- A shorter, human-readable license name where the SPDX license name (titleabove) is longvariant- Whether the license is a variant of a family of licenses (defaults to false)family- If part of a license family, the name of the license family (e.g.,GPL)
Auto-populated fields
The licenses on choosealicense.com are regularly imported to GitHub.com to be used as the list of licenses available when creating a repository. When we create a repository, we will replace certain strings in the license with variables from the repository. These can be used to create accurate copyright notices. The available variables are:
Fields
fullname- The full name or username of the repository ownerlogin- The repository owner's usernameemail- The repository owner's primary email addressproject- The repository namedescription- The description of the repositoryyear- The current year
License properties
The license properties (rules) are stored as a bulleted list within the licenses YAML front matter. Each rule has a name e.g., include-copyright, a human-readable label, e.g., Copyright inclusion, and a description Include the original copyright with the code. To add a new rule, simply add it to _data/rules.yml and reference it in the appropriate license.
Rules
Permissions
commercial-use- This software and derivatives may be used for commercial purposes.modifications- This software may be modified.distribution- You may distribute this software.private-use- You may use and modify the software without distributing it.patent-use- This license provides an express grant of patent rights from the contributor to the recipient.
Conditions
include-copyright- Include a copy of the license and copyright notice with the code.document-changes- Indicate significant changes made to the code.disclose-source- Source code must be made available when distributing the software.network-use-disclose- Users who interact with the software via network are given the right to receive a copy of the corresponding source code.rename- You must change the name of the software if you modify it.same-license- Modifications must be released under the same license when distributing the software. In some cases a similar or related license may be used.
Limitations
trademark-use- While this may be implicitly true of all licenses, this license explicitly states that it does NOT grant you any rights in the trademarks or other marks of contributors.no-liability- Software is provided without warranty and the software author/license owner cannot be held liable for damages.patent-use- This license explicitly states that it does NOT grant you any rights in the patents of contributors.
License
The content of this project itself is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, and the underlying source code used to format and display that content is licensed under the MIT license.