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Pending approval, I will be using NPOI for internal programs at work. I will be documenting the associated license, and I find myself wondering about licensing on the programs themselves.

In short:

  1. Do I need a license for company internal programs?
  2. If so, what 'stock' licenses are available? I'm not having any luck finding any.

EDIT:

My employer does own the work. I like the style proposed by https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/234526 suggesting a LICENSE-3RD-PARTY.txt , which made me question if I should have a license on the program itself. I suppose a disclaimer may be more appropriate. We are an international company, so that may come into play. Previous programs haven't included any disclaimers, etc. I will ask my boss if we need to pursue any formal license/disclaimer.

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StephenW
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1 Answers1

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Consider that the company likely owns the copyright (work for hire) on the programs being created, and is also the user.

This means that the license is irrelevant: a license is an agreement the owner of the software's copyright and anyone who wishes to use the software. If the two parties are the same entity, using any license makes no sense.

That being said, it would make sense to include a disclaimer stating that the software is owned and copyrighted by the company and individual users employed by the company andacting on its behalf should not redistribute or otherwise infringe on the company's copyright.

Please note that the scope of this answer is the licensing (or lack thereof) only and does not constitute legal advice. The final say rests with your employer's legal department.

  • I am not a lawyer, but it might be more complex if the company is a big corporation with subsidiaries world-wide (e.g. if the software is developed in the USA but used in Germany within another company owned at 75% by the big USA corporation) – Basile Starynkevitch Feb 20 '15 at 13:29
  • @BasileStarynkevitch I am also not a lawyer, but this is what I have done in the past for internal applications. This is a question about how to license his own (or employer's) software, which is fine. Besides, anymore copyright law is [pretty universal](http://www.wipo.int/). –  Feb 20 '15 at 13:32
  • A current and complicated example of subsidiaries complicating this question would be Bukkit, Mojang, and Microsoft. –  Feb 20 '15 at 22:05