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This is mostly a theoritical question, but I'm wondering what the proper way would be to accomplish the following.
Assume I have a few utilities, functions, and reference implementations that I use when building a web site for a client. Some of "my" reference code is re-used as-is, some is slightly modified. Also, as part of the agreement with the client, I agree to turn over all code and IP rights.
(I know the best answer is probably "talk to a lawyer" but really, how many lawyers are going to be versed in software licencing? I imagine I'd get better, more accurate here than picking a lawyer out of the phone book).
What sort of copyright notification and/or licencing should I include in the code I turn over to the client, if I want to be able to re-use "my" code on other projects?
Check out NOLO's "Legal Guide to Web & Software Development." It covers various contracts, license agreements, and IP ownership agreements related to software development. I have used the sample contracts as a template for a few of my agreements which are later reviewed by my attorney.
At the very least this book can help you understand what the terms, like transfer of IP ownership, really mean for you the developer.
If you turn over the "IP rights", doesn't that imply you are transferring ownership of the code? Which would mean that you can't re-use it without their permission or license, since you no longer own it?
You might want to look into revising your agreements with your clients, so that you can retain ownership and rights to your own work...
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Background:
This question caused me some sleepless nights over the last month. I'm an independent software developer and have recently finished the work on my first application. I've read a lot of articles about license agreements but I still don't know how to tackle this task in an appropriate way. My application handles user files. In every method I check for consistency & errors and I've betatested it on several systems for more than 6 months. I'm very sure nothing should go wrong, but I want to be on the save side.
Are license agreements by themselves protected by a copyright or can
I just take one and replace the companies name? (All of them look pretty similar to my untrained eyes)
If I'm allowed to use one, am I allowed to edit it?
I don't want my users to be "kept in a cage". I want them to be as free as they could be. For example I want them to be able to freely install my software on all their personal devices.
Where can I find non-Opensource licenses*? I've been searching for a
long time now. I found this Page but it actually confused me more than it helped.
I plan on publishing my app on the Mac-AppStore. Are there licenses
I can't use there?
(As I mentioned above I want a "User License" model that allows the user to install it on all of his Macs)
If you've got any kind of experience with this topic, feel free to share your insights. It's well appreciated!
*Edit: By "non-Opensource licenses" I mean licenses for commercial applications.
1.
You are free to take an existing agreement you find and adapt it to your ends. There is no originality of expression in a licensing agreement itself that would be covered under copyright law preventing your use of its language -- assuming the language fits your circumstances. You should always understand what you're agreeing to. :-)
P.S. Authority: I've worked with large law firms for 20 years as a software developer, licensing my software to them and also consulting with some of them when they had to write contracts for their own clients and didn't undertand the technical issues.
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I noticed that http://getchabooks.com has a list of many schools and the classes that they offer. Does anyone know how they get this data? I assume it's through some database, but I could be wrong.
It is most likely through a database. Their database to be precise and I doubt they will let you have access to it.
I found this site which looks pretty legit and offers a CSV or an excel for all accredited Colleges:
http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/GetDownloadFile.aspx
The site does have the disclamer:
The U.S. Department of Education cannot, therefore, guarantee that the
information contained in the database is accurate, current, or
complete.
You could probably come up with a scraper to glean the rest of the information from publicly available sites but you would have to check into the legality of that.
It's not everything but it's a start. Hope this helps!
Tons and tons of manual data entry, and/or negotiations with the specific colleges they support. Not all colleges even have their own databases of classes (and most don't have book information online in any consistent format); there's certainly no central college course catalog database out there.
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So I am almost finished with my first app. It was constructed in Visual Studio/C#. I am now trying to determine which license to run with. I plan to provide the program free of charge to businesses and consumers, however, I do not want to publish the source code.
What is the best licensing format to go with? This application is kind of a teaser for a more powerful version so I would like to publish this one for free and hopefully make some money selling the 'power user' version.
I will be packaging Putty with this. I am about to go read their site as I may need to role my own SSH client.
I will be headed to my lawyer this week. Just want to get a bit of knowledge before I talk to her so I don't look like a dumb fool. Thanks in advance for your input!
Putty uses the MIT licence, so all you need to do is incorporate that licence along with your software. For your code you can use whatever licence you choose, no one will ask for your code unless you explicitly want to make it public.
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I am going to development a product related to security. It's my personal belief that any security related product should release it's source code for review. However, I also want to sell it as a commercial product and keep the code ownership to myself and don't expect deviated work.
Is there a software license for this purpose? Thanks.
The Microsoft Reference Source License comes to mind for this kind of requirement.
Ordinary copyright law should do this - if you don't grant a license to anyone, then people can read your code if you publish it, but you retain all rights to it.
I would agree with you with respect to review, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be published in the public domain. You could make it available upon request but require that anyone obtaining it (a) not disclose the code itself to another and (b) not use the code to develop a product in competition with yours. Get a lawyer to fine-tune the language. In this way, you can have your code available for inspection and verification but retain some reasonable assurance that it won't simply be copied by unscrupulous competitors -- or, at least, have a more solid case in the event that it is used without your consent.
Yes, it's called copyright + non-disclosure agreement.
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Currently a user makes a purchase and then a license is generated and sent to that user, but the license isn't tied to a physical computer so there is nothing to prevent the user sharing the license with someone.
I heard people talk about creating a license tied to the mac address of the computer, so the license only works on that computer. Now I know how to get the mac address in code but I dont understand how I can do this step when they first make the purchase on the web, so please what is the basic algorithm for node locked licenses ?
Users will hate you. If you're in a niche market, build trust not barriers between you and your clients.
The reason I say this, is that I use a $20,000 per license software on my pc, and trust me, if my pc farts, the license is void and I have to call them up to reactivate.
The best control and friendliest method I find is by giving each licensed version a usb dongle. that way you can install the software on a gazillion computers but it could only run with a dongle.