The NOTE section in the README conflict with the license (at least, i think)
JacksonChen666 opened this issue · 5 comments
DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.
The GNU GPL license is generally a license that restricts applying restrictions (i know, sounds odd. but it is what it is).
The NOTE section of the README disallows redistribution unless explicitly permitted by the author, and also commercial use.
Unfortunately, the license actually allows doing such things, including private use, redistribution (source code must be available and accessible), AND commercial use.
It's not my claim, it's based on the short notice in the LICENSE file visible on GitHub.
All in all, @IkeVoodoo should review the GPL v2 license and reconsider the NOTE section of the README.
The note is just a note, not meant to be used to stop people, mostly discourage people from copying and pasting, however, thank you for telling me :D, if you have any suggestions for a license feel free to tell me!
The note is just a note, not meant to be used to stop people, mostly discourage people from copying and pasting, however, thank you for telling me :D, if you have any suggestions for a license feel free to tell me!
it is completely useless in its current state. the note does not and cannot discourage anything that is explicitly permitted by the GPLv3.
if you have any suggestions for a license feel free to tell me!
Actually, the only way you can have that note (which is assumed to apply) and a license which doesn't conflict with that note is not at all, unless you cease to be "open source" or "free software" (free as in freedom, not gratis).
Both "Open source" and "Free software" require allowing redistribution and use, pretty much no matter what1. Your note forbids redistribution unless permitted, which is not "Open source" nor "Free software"
Unfortunately, the license you currently have is the GNU GPL v3, which is very much considered "free software" (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GNUGPLv3). So I brought up this issue.
Again, not a lawyer, but there's some conflicts with that note and your license.
Also, another thing I noticed with your license, the copyright notice for the license was replaced with yours. That's not correct because that copyright notice applies to the license document itself.
You're not supposed to change the license document (and you're not allowed either), instead you should be attaching copyright notices to your source code.
Footnotes
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There's a very specific case where you're not allowed to use the software because you violated something in the license and you didn't correct it the violation, whatever, it's a bit of a mess to explain now but it is mostly "no matter what". ↩
@IkeVoodoo Please see #224.
@JacksonChen666 fixed; you may close this issue