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Ask HN: I need a non-cryptic open source software license

2 points by darxius ↗ HN
I'm searching for a software license that will allow any kind of derivative work only if it is released under the same license and only if attribution is given to the author (me).

I'm sure a license like this exists, however the cryptic nature of the majority of the licenses really turn me off and make it very hard for me to understand exactly what people can do with my code.

6 comments

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cd34 

  http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
I believe you want an MIT license.

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/MIT

[dead] test23452
"allow any kind of derivative work only if it is released under the same license"
_delirium
The MIT license doesn't require that derivative works also be released under the same license; you need a copyleft license for that kind of requirement.
cd34
You know, the boilerplate I used for MIT was a copyleft derivative and I never really glanced at the original.

http://snk.tuxfamily.org/log/copyleft-mit-license.html

contains the license I've used, but, is not the source where I grabbed the text. I should re-evaluate that. Thanks for the reminder.

dangrossman
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

* Allowed to remix (create derivative works)

* Allowed to share (copy and distribute the work)

* Share alike (distribution must be under the same license)

* Attribution is required

darxius
CC says you shouldn't release any code or software under their license.