Hello people,
I recently made a small program, for a game called canvas rider (canvasrider.com), that makes ramps (probably not really important what it does). I want to register it under GNU GPL license. I know I will have to give away the source code, and I want to do that! But how exactly do I do this? Do I just copy & paste the license in the project? Or do I have to register it somewhere, for example on the fsf.org website. This is not that big of a program (under 2000 C++ lines of code), so if it is too much bother, I will just give away the code without licencing it. Also majority of my users are going to be Windows users, I had to make a Windows version, that uses windows functions like SetCursorPos() and others. Does it violate the GNU License or not?
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Jump to PostI'm no licensing expert but I do know that I hate the GPL, what if someone wants to use a part of your code in a product, or something that you don't want to give the source away? What if *you* want to use a part of it in something …
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I'm no licensing expert but I do know that I hate the GPL, what if someone wants to use a part of your code in a product, or something that you don't want to give the source away? What if *you* want to use a part of it in something you don't want to give the source away? The GPL is just a license saying "you can't sell this and you have to give source code if you use it".
F' the GPL and the "Open Source Initiative" free the code!
The way I see it the GPL is imposing restrictions on the finished product and I don't think that's a good thing. I, understandably as a developer, want free source code instead of free software.
The way I see it, the steps are as follows:
In top level directory of your project (the main directory), place the file named COPYING there having the contents as mentioned here.
And now follow the given instructions (taken from the gnu site):
For programs that are more than one file, it is better to replace “this program” with the name of the program, and begin the statement with a line saying “This file is part of NAME”. For instance,
This file is part of Foobar.
Foobar is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
Foobar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with Foobar. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
This statement should go near the beginning of every source file, close to the copyright notices. When using the Lesser GPL, insert the word “Lesser” before “General” in all three places. When using the GNU AGPL, insert the word “Affero” before “General” in all three places.I'm no licensing expert but I do know that I hate the GPL, what if someone wants to use a part of your code in a product, or something that you don't want to give the source away? What if *you* want to use a part of it in something you don't want to give the source away? The GPL is just a license saying "you can't sell this and you have to give source code if you use it".
F' the GPL and the "Open Source Initiative" free the code!
The way I see it the GPL is imposing restrictions on the finished product and I don't think that's a good thing. I, understandably as a developer, want free source code instead of free software.
Not all people are as selfish as you are. You can sell the free software if you want to(see here). It is free as in freedom, not as in free beer. I want people to modify my program, and make it better. I also want to make it free so everyone can use it. I strongly disagree with US copyright and patent laws. For example, the copyright are intended to protect the author, so he makes money from the book/song or anything else he/she makes. Then why the f*** do copyright laws last 75 years AFTER the author dies. It only encourages big companies like Itunes, and other huge music corporation to become even richer then they already are.
Also, if a singer, became a famous and rich, only then will people pirate his music. So everyone who says, most of the signers in US are poor and they need to earn some money, pirating doesn't hurt them at all. They are poor mostly because of other reasons (crappy singing I will guess). Right now, pirating only makes big singing stars lose some money, which is fair. It makes there earning more closer to what they would earn on a normal REAL job.
There is some kinds of pirating that can hurt people who make things. For example, authors who write books. Most of them are not rich, and books are there only way to get money. I sometimes pirate books on my Kindle, but every BOOK that I really like, and learned something from it, I always buy! So far, I pirated about 10-15 books, finished about 4, and own 6 of them, which costed me $300. This is pretty big money for me, because I don't work yet (I am 14), and only money I really get is $700 I get for lunch in schools each year ($20 each week), which I never buy, and about $150 for my birthday. I bought worth $300 books in 2 years, and my computer costs $300 too. Why did I buy books and not buy a much better computer? Because I want to support the authors of the books. These people actually EARN there money and not just GET them.
In conclusion, in my life, I only saw negative things about copyright and patent laws. I still think it is necessary evil, but it should last for much shorter periods of time. For example copyright laws, about 3 years, and patents about 8 years (and no patent extensions). Also there should be MUCH less patents given out. For example, my mom works for a company that makes glass (for lasers and stuff like that). It is not big, but they work hard. There was a competitor company that made glass too (BTW it does not make glass anymore), and they made a patent that if you cut a specific kind of glass, it will keep its physical properties. This is complete bullsh!t, and the company for which my mom works, knows everything the patent says before it was made, and used the info before, and didn't even think about patenting it. It is like making a patent "If you put your hand on a hot stove, your hand will get burned." This is common sense! So what do they do now you may ask (since they don't make glass anymore)? They call the clients of the company for which my mom works, and say that the company uses patents which they own, and they don't pay for it. If they try to sue the company for which my mom works, they will lose there patent, so they will not be able to ask other glass making companies for money (2 of them paying 5% of there profit), which they don't want. The company for which my mom works, wants to sue the company which has patent, but it will cost about half a million of dollars, and a lot of effort.
The patents Microsoft makes are about the same. They currently own about 700 of them and I would guess half of them should be invalid. They spend huge money on this patents, and I would guess about half of Microsoft employees are probably lawyers. They should spend more time and money on making better software instead of this patent laws.
Not all people are as selfish as you are. You can sell the free software if you want to(see here). It is free as in freedom, not as in free beer. I want people to modify my program, and make it better. I also want to make it free so everyone can use it. I strongly disagree with US copyright and patent laws. For example, the copyright are intended to protect the author, so he makes money from the book/song or anything else he/she makes. Then why the f*** do copyright laws last 75 years AFTER the author dies. It only encourages big companies like Itunes, and other huge music corporation to become even richer then they already are.
Also, if a singer, became a famous and rich, only then will people pirate his music. So everyone who says, most of the signers in US are poor and they need to earn some money, pirating doesn't hurt them at all. They are poor mostly because of other reasons (crappy singing I will guess). Right now, pirating only makes big singing stars lose some money, which is fair. It makes there earning more closer to what they would earn on a normal REAL job.
There is some kinds of pirating that can hurt people who make things. For example, authors who write books. Most of them are not rich, and books are there only way to get money. I sometimes pirate books on my Kindle, but every BOOK that I really like, and learned something from it, I always buy! So far, I pirated about 10-15 books, finished about 4, and own 6 of them, which costed me $300. This is pretty big money for me, because I don't work yet (I am 14), and only money I really get is $700 I get for lunch in schools each year ($20 each week), which I never buy, and about $150 for my birthday. I bought worth $300 books in 2 years, and my computer costs $300 too. Why did I buy books and not buy a much better computer? Because I want to support the authors of the books. These people actually EARN there money and not just GET them.
In conclusion, in my life, I only saw negative things about copyright and patent laws. I still think it is necessary evil, but it should last for much shorter periods of time. For example copyright laws, about 3 years, and patents about 8 years (and no patent extensions). Also there should be MUCH less patents given out. For example, my mom works for a company that makes glass (for lasers and stuff like that). It is not big, but they work hard. There was a competitor company that made glass too (BTW it does not make glass anymore), and they made a patent that if you cut a specific kind of glass, it will keep its physical properties. This is complete bullsh!t, and the company for which my mom works, knows everything the patent says before it was made, and used the info before, and didn't even think about patenting it. It is like making a patent "If you put your hand on a hot stove, your hand will get burned." This is common sense! So what do they do now you may ask (since they don't make glass anymore)? They call the clients of the company for which my mom works, and say that the company uses patents which they own, and they don't pay for it. If they try to sue the company for which my mom works, they will lose there patent, so they will not be able to ask other glass making companies for money (2 of them paying 5% of there profit), which they don't want. The company for which my mom works, wants to sue the company which has patent, but it will cost about half a million of dollars, and a lot of effort.
The patents Microsoft makes are about the same. They currently own about 700 of them and I would guess half of them should be invalid. They spend huge money on this patents, and I would guess about half of Microsoft employees are probably lawyers. They should spend more time and money on making better software instead of this patent laws.
Of course American laws suck, why not join the 2012 Presidential candidates discussion? :D
Ok lol, I think I was to harsh, I can be really ideological sometimes. But I think I should get more education about different candidates before discussing it. :)
I'm no licensing expert but I do know that I hate the GPL, what if someone wants to use a part of your code in a product, or something that you don't want to give the source away? What if *you* want to use a part of it in something you don't want to give the source away? The GPL is just a license saying "you can't sell this and you have to give source code if you use it".
F' the GPL and the "Open Source Initiative" free the code!
The way I see it the GPL is imposing restrictions on the finished product and I don't think that's a good thing. I, understandably as a developer, want free source code instead of free software.
Well that can be bad under few circumstances. But I dont hate GPL(though I hate it sometimes, when libraries are GPL'ed). The idea of so much restriction in GPL is to support fellow open source developers. I remember an article by RMS, where he explains the reasons.
Well that can be bad under few circumstances. But I dont hate GPL(though I hate it sometimes, when libraries are GPL'ed). The idea of so much restriction in GPL is to support fellow open source developers. I remember an article by RMS, where he explains the reasons.
I know it's a good thing..sort of..
Ok, it maybe bad sometimes, but I am not planning to make money of programming for at least probably 8 more years, when I finish collage, and maybe then I will not be doing programming anymore.
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