6502.org

Hi there,

I am in the process of deciding which license to use for my implementation of the 65k processor (remember, the specification is free anyway, anyone can make their own implementation, it's only a license for my own one)

Note for the following discussion: I am not a lawyer! Take with care!

The purpose I want for the license is that anyone can use my 65k implementation, but I get the appropriate attribution. A good thing would be if someone uses it _and_ changes it, that the changes need to be published again, so that improvements can be shared.

In a (short) search I have seen web sites with LGPL(3) and dual licenses with LGPL and proprietary license. I am actually surprised that I did not find any BSD-style or Apache-style licenses.

Concerning commercial usage: I think that's fine with me. And I don't want my code to "infect" any commercial project. That's why GPL is out of the question. LGPL would allow linking the open source code to commercial code, without that infection, so that the commercial code can be kept proprietary.

As far as I understand (again, IANAL) with LGPL source code, and any direct modifications (to the open source code) must be made public when it is used. This is not the case with BSD or Apache-style, so the open source code can be taken proprietary and modified without the need to give the changes back to the public.

So currently I tend to the LGPL3.

So what is your opinion? Do you have preferred licenses? Any other considerations?

Many thanks
André

I used LGPL for reasons very like yours, for 65Org16. I wanted to be sure that improvements and bugfixes would not be locked away(*), but I didn't want to prevent anyone from using the core and integrating it with something else which was closed-source or proprietary.

(I was able to choose the LGPL because Arlet kindly released/relicensed his core with that license.)

(I chose LGPL 2 because I'm unsure of the full implications of the change to version 3 and haven't put in the effort to understand the question. I realise this is a sin.)

As the original author, for as long as there are no other contributors, you are free to change your mind and re-license, or release with multiple licenses, or to license subsequent versions with different licenses or to issue specific licenses to specific parties. In all cases, you retain copyright of your work, until you assign it to someone else.

Cheers
Ed

(*) A user of software, who has the source, is surely able to make improvements and bugfixes, and keep them private. The GPL and LGPL are concerned about people who re-distribute software, having got the source for free, made changes, but who intend not to pass the source on. The users of that redistributed software then lose out on the benefits of the source. Even the original authors don't see the enhanced sources. This is the problem with MIT and BSD licenses.

Thanks Ed, that follows my line of reasoning and it's good to hear that this is accepted here (I did not follow the discussion about the 65org16 too closely to notice...)

Also I still need to decide whether to use LGPL2 or LGPL3, for the same reasons you mention....

André