Re: [gnugo-devel] Go Board and Go Stone Images

[Daniel Bump]

> I haven't thought of licensing very much, since my codes aren't
> nearly good enough to be licensed. Also, I know that there are a lot of 
> different
> licenses out there (e.g. MIT, Creative Commons, BSD licenses, various GPL
> versions, and LGPL). When I encounter them, I know I can generally
> use/study the code. If I'm unsure, I can always ask. But, I feel I don't
> know enough about the issue to make an intelligent decision when I'm on the
> other side.

GPL requires that if someone builds on your code and distributes
the result, they have to make their source code free.
I am using the term "free" in the sense of the Free Software
Foundation. Free means others have the right not only to use your
software, but also to improve it. In other words, you distribute
your source code. Free licenses do not prohibit commercial
use. But GPL does require that code that descends from yours be
also free. See:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

> But, what do you think is the best way to approach the licensing

I think GPL is the best way. So do many others: there's
tons of GPL'd software available.

With MIT (i.e. X11) or BSD type license someone could take your
program, improve it, keep the source code to their improvements
private and sell it as proprietary software. If you license it GPL
you are requiring that someone who builds on your software (if
they distribute their work and not just keep it to themselves)
must also distribute their code. This is often what you want.

> issue? Or, learn about this issue?

The FSF has a FAQ which probably answers any
questions you have:

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

They also have other pages that discuss this matter
in different ways, for example:

https://www.gnu.org/copyleft/

Dan