Camen Design Forum

Open Source & Licensing

Kroc

I was going to mirror Johann, you can never know what someone else may come up with.

If someone has adverts on a site that uses your code, does that constitute commercial use?

When it comes to my site and my code, I do not want to be making myself stressed by having to know about, and manage, every use of my code everywhere. If people want to abuse it, I’d rather not know, thanks. That way I can spend more time caring about my own needs than micro-managing everybody else and wasting time chasing after copycats who won’t ever give a damn about what they’re doing, this century or the next.

It doesn’t matter what you make, how you licence it, people could abuse it. The decision is how involved you want to be in dealing with that abuse. Do you really want to be filing DMCA notices and hiring lawyers because you’re protective over your code? I cannot see this as being worth the hassle.

What makes code valuable is the minds behind it, not the lines of code itself. Anybody could copy my code, but nobody but me could have come up with it in the first place. That is where I focus my attention—generating new code, rather than fighting over what has already been given away. The copycats can never release your next product before you.

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Your friendly neighbourhood moderators: Kroc, Impressed, Martijn