Open Source License for ECF Open Repository

[James E Cabral <jec@mtgmc.com>]

Todd,

 

I hope you and XMinimus are well. 

 

OASIS is now supporting open repositories on Github. https://www.oasis-open.org/resources/open-repositories/

 

The ECF TC is considering standing up an open repo for contributors to share their extensions to ECF. 

We need to identify an open source license and could use some help from someone with those licenses and, preferably, a legal background.  Gary Graham suggested you might be able to help.

 

Here is are the open source licenses currently supported:

https://www.oasis-open.org/resources/open-repositories/licenses

https://choosealicense.com/licenses/mit/

https://choosealicense.com/licenses/apache-2.0/

https://choosealicense.com/licenses/bsd-3-clause/

https://choosealicense.com/licenses/epl-1.0/

https://choosealicense.com/licenses/cc-by-4.0/

 

Note that  these are mostly “permissive” licenses.  The only so called “copy-left” licenses that is supported is the Eclipse License.

 

My understanding is that the MIT License continues to be the most popular due to its simplicity.  The BSD license is also very simple and seems to provide the same features as the MIT license.

 

The differences between the MIT License and the other options appear to be:

• Apache License grants rights to patents, requires documentation of code changes, and clarifies trademarks.
• CC-BY-4.0 does NOT grant rights to patents, requires documentation of code changes, and clarifies trademarks.
• Eclipse License grants rights to patents, requires the distribution of source code, and modifications must use the same license (copy-left).

 

I don’t think we want a copy-left license and I’m not too worried about documentation of code changes so I think I prefer the MIT or BSD licenses for their simplicity. 

 

Do you have any recommendations?

 

__
Jim Cabral
502 509 4532