Provide LICENSE

[rlaemmel]

At this point we generally seem to assume the following license, but this could be changed, if needed.

http://101companies.org/wiki/101companies:License

Should the LICENSE file hence at the top of the repo? Is just a pointer enough? Say, what is the smallest footprint for addressing the LICENSE duty?

[rlaemmel]

@DerDackel as we discussed a while back, we were really hoping for you to make a solid suggestion (compatible with "best practice" and simple at the same time) as to how we should generally standardize our license approach.

I can see these issues:

• For contributions under our control we want to apply a very liberal license.
• Other contributors may dictate particular licenses for their stuff.
• It must be easy to document how one can see what license applies for a given file or directory.
• Of course, we do not only have contributors, but also infrastructure. What is the license situation here?

Let's resolve this.

Also looping in @avaranovich and @tschmorleiz here. Perhaps they can also throw in some insights as to where we stand and what we should do.

@DerDackel , once we are more settled, please summarize the proposed conventions and choices here:

http://mediawiki.101companies.org/wiki/Information:License

[DerDackel]

The original license provided is GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), which we could continue to use but we have to make note of its restrictions:

• Copyleft - anyone who develops stuff based on 101simplejava code has to publish the source within one week of publishing a binary of the code (this is actually the point of the license so might be a reason to stick with it).
• There exist some incertainties as to wether linking GPL and non-GPL code violates the GPL.

Alternatives might be:

3-clause BSD license (http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/License:BSD_3Clause). This one can be simply summed up:

• Redistributed source must contain the BSD license
• Same goes for redistributed binaries
• The name of the issuing organisation (the SLE workgroup in this case) may not be used to endorse/promote any products based on the source

There is no copyleft, so anyone may modify the code and keep the modified source for himself. BSD is considered a free license by the FSF but is not compatible with the GPL, i.e. GPL and BSD code may not link (or interact depending on legal POV). Alternatively, a 2-clause BSD might be chosen, eliminating the third of the above points.

Apache License 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt). This one is permissive but compatible with the GPL.

• It differs from BSD in that anyone who modifies source of an ASF 2.0 project, must prminently mark the files he modified (this means, we need to provide at least a reference to the license in every source file).
• A NOTICE file can be included and it must be included by anyone who redistributes the source.
• Anyone who redistributes the source may add additional, different or modified terms to the license for his changes.

Concerning all of this: IANAL, I can't hope to understand all the legalese (except for BSD. BSD is dead simple), this is just what I took from treatments of the license text (Wikipedia, FSF and ASF).

These three are my suggested contenders for the 101companies license with BSD being my favorite for its straight simplicity. However, you might have other goals in mind for the project.

[rlaemmel]

Assigning this to mean that I need to lead the discussion towards making a decision here.
We had already a nice discussion based on @DerDackel 's input.

[mmonschau]

101repo is now under MIT-License (https://github.com/101companies/101repo/blob/master/LICENSE)
And https://101wiki.softlang.org/101license still does not exist although its linked in 101project ( https://101wiki.softlang.org/Concept:101project )

[kevin-klein]

101project page is retired and 101license has no meaning as far as i know.

[kevin-klein]

101code is usually licensed like this: https://github.com/101companies/101repo/blob/master/LICENSE

[mmonschau]

then provide LICENSE-files

[kevin-klein]

what do you mean? i think we just forgot the 101haskell, 101java etc repos.

[mmonschau]

each repo needs a license file

[kevin-klein]

yes, we should probably take care of this. @rlaemmel i can find the following (semi-used) repos without license files:
https://github.com/101companies/101worker
https://github.com/101companies/101simplejava
https://github.com/101companies/101courses
https://github.com/101companies/101haskell

should i put them under the same license as 101repo?