#FreeSoftware without a Licence is not free! Your code is only useful, if other developers know that they can safely use it, without risking lawsuits.
If you are on #Codeberg, please check that your content is licenced under an OSI / FSF approved licence.
Thank you for caring about #FOSS.
@codeberg if I were a developer in need of a license for my code, how would I find out which of those licenses is the best one for my project?
@technicallypossible
That's a tough question, we are going to add an article to the docs or our blog.
Most well-known and widely used licences are safe, for example copylefted ones like GPL, LGPL, also MIT (X11 & Expat), 3-clause BSD, usually the CreativeCommons licences ... but beware, not all are compatible with OSI / FSF and thus allowed on Codeberg, because they may not allow FreeCulture.
We know it's complicated, thus people started using Unlicence, WTFPL etc, but these may introduce legal trouble ...
@codeberg I have looked at different licenses before and they are all great but how do I find out what's best for my project? Allow unlimited commercial use to be compatible with *BSD OSes, enforce copyleft to be compatible with Linux distros, and how does the German Urheberrecht play into all of that? Can I prevent some evil corporation or the military from using my code against vulnerable people? Licenses aren't easy and I can understand why people think "let's worry about licensing later"
@technicallypossible Totally! But it's important to understand that the topic is still mandatory else all your work might become useless, since no one can safely rely on it.
As mentioned, choosealicence.com is a good starting point. For your example, I'd probably recommend GPL - commercial use allowed by disclosing changes to the source, it's copyleft and compatible.
To the latter question: Solving ethical matters in licences has been tried, but rather unsuccessfully. We advise against this.
