Survey Results - What's important to you when considering the license of open source code?

I have done many projects in the last decade, and all are built on top of X11/MIT licensed code.
The main requirement I look for, is if I can ship it with a commercial product.
Nothing is forcing me to ship it in it's original form, only changes to the code need to be shared, not obfuscation techniques, packaging, or security additions.

Sharing code updates is typically something with almost no overhead at all.
You fork, you update, you create a PR with comments explaining the fix and the requirement is done.
Doing it any other way guarantees you will deviate from the upstream source, or end up with stale and unmaintained code, so it's not cost effective.

Some developers like to reinvent the wheel and skew open source projects, because they don't realize free project maintenance is cost effective. That's the only free part about open source you should be bothered with, imo.

Kate-X257 wrote:
The main requirement I look for, is if I can ship it with a commercial product.

"Granting of explicit rights (usage, patent etc)"

Sounds like you want an explicit right to use it commercially.

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius

Fair point. :P

Do answers on Codeproject and Stackoverflow count?

I know that the "free" word is in quotation marks but just wanted to point out that open source code is not necessarily free for all uses. As an example, it may not be free for commercial uses.

Of course someone could just copy it but, if found by the author, could originate another lengthy/costly court case about Intellectual Property.

Just wanted to point that out as there has been some debate and confusion about that topic and this, sometimes, degenerates into angry developers doing (let us call it) "not so nice things".

As I understand, most code has a license that can be:
- free open source (the ultimate freedom)
- open source for non-commercial use
- open source with closed source components (which can be paid or not)
- free closed source (freeware for all)
- free closed source for non-commercial use (freeware)
- commercial closed source
- (I am sure there are others I forgot)

Coders who maintain their code for free while others use it to make billions can reasonably get pretty angsty, like Marak Squires did. If I were going to use any open source code, I would want a license and to know that others licensing the code who will be making billions from it would have to pay for that kind of license. It would be a comfort to know that the maintainer would be consoled by such payment and be more likely to remain beneficent.

The front-end ecosystem is crazy and sometimes collapses, like recently when a developer of two popular packages corrupted those packages to make a statement.
Or a while back when a developer pulled a popular package from npm.

For me, it's important that a package is stable.
If it's not actively being developed that's not necessarily a bad thing, sometimes code just is what it is.
If it is being developed, I like it when a professional party is behind it, like Google or Microsoft (still no guarantees, but better than some guy named l33tc0der).

As for licenses, I prefer MIT.
I need to be able to use it as I see fit, no restrictions, no costs.
All in all, licenses are a pain, just tell me, plain and simple without all the legalese, how I can use code I find on the internet.
A license like GNU, where I should check all my other packages for licenses and see if they are at least as non-restrictive (or something like that) is just a pain and quite frankly not something I do.
Also, I need to be able to use it in commercial applications.

Best,
Sander

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I don't use open source code or other third-party code.

Any reason why not? If someone else has already made a component / function, etc. that does what you need to do then surely it's easier to use that?

Sometimes you're not allowed to. Nintendo's contract for using their SDKs (Wii and DSi at the time) absolutely prohibited it, so either you reinvented the wheel or paid a third party for their reinvented wheel.

Makes sense Smile | :)

Does seem to make things a bit more difficult.

I'll second that.

I don't use them either. Why? Just haven't needed to. Also, Corporate policies make it hard to bring in any new code/vendor, open source or not. So it's easier to use what we already have.

Bond
Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere

Has a license that the corporate OSS team will approve.

You most definitely do use third-party code of some kind unless you build your entire hardware and software stack.

utf8-cpp

Option	Votes	%
The ability to make changes to the code without having to publish my changes	212	34.98
Unrestricted access to the source code	247	40.76
Granting of explicit rights (usage, patent etc)	131	21.62
Clarity on what happens if use of the code results in damages	45	7.43
No restrictions on use (even against using the code for illegal purposes)	122	20.13
Ability to redistribute the code in any form I choose	211	34.82
The ability to link the code with other code that may have a different license	199	32.84
I generally don't pay much attention to licenses. If I can view it, I use it.	173	28.55
Responses	606
Respondents were allowed to choose more than one answer; totals may not add up to 100%