Which License Should I Use?

[Rocco Moretti]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 11:30:46 -0800, mojosam wrote:
> 
>>I guess I don't care too much about how other people use it.
> 
> Then probably the best licence to use is just to follow the lead of
> Python. For that sort of small program of limited value, I put something
> like this in the code:
> 
> Copyright (c) 2005 Steven D'Aprano.
> Released under the same license as used by Python 2.3.2 itself. 
> See http://www.python.org/psf/license.html for details, and 
> http://www.python.org/2.3.2/license.html for the full text of the license.

Gaak! No! The Python license you point to contains horrible amounts of 
cruft due to the ownership ping-pong game. (And just using the hyperlink 
like you did leaves it vauge as to who is doing the liscensing - Steven 
D'Aprano? the PSF? BeOpen? CNRI? Stichting Mathematisch Centrum?) As I 
understand it, the PSF's official position is that the Python license 
(even just the top most one) is not appropriate for any program besides 
Python itself.

http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonSoftwareFoundationLicenseFaq

Note that the Python license is not even appropriate for third party 
code that's intended to be contributed to the Python standard library or 
core!

If you want a "like Python" license, try the MIT or "new-BSD" license 
instead:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php