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Questions tagged [open-source]

QUESTIONS ABOUT LICENSING ARE OFF-TOPIC. You may ask questions about open source licensing on https://opensource.stackexchange.com. This tag is for asking about designing programs that interact with open source software.

Open source software is software whose source code is published and made available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute the source code without paying royalties or fees. Open source code evolves through community cooperation. These communities are composed of individual programmers as well as very large companies.

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What's the canonical retort to "it's open source, submit a patch"?

The danger of ever suggesting some feature on a product, especially open source, is that you'll get the response, "why don't you do it?". That's valid, and it's cool that you can make the change yourself. But we know practically that products do…
Vincent Scheib
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How can I find a good open source project to join?

I just started working a year ago, and I want to join an open source project for the same reasons as anyone else: help create something useful and develop my skills further. My problem is, I don't know how to find a project where I'll fit in. How…
Pops
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Is it possible to rewrite every line of an open source project in a slightly different way, and use it in a closed source project?

There is some code which is GPL or LGPL that I am considering using for an iPhone project. If I took that code (JavaScript) and rewrote it in a different language for use on the iPhone would that be a legal issue? In theory the process that has…
Chris Barry
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How to avoid being forked into oblivion by a more powerful contributor?

As recently reported here: Xamarin has forked Cocos2D-XNA, a 2D/3D game development framework, creating a cross-platform library that can be included in PCL projects. However the founder of the project that was forked says: The purpose of the…
Den
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Why are many programmers moving their code to github?

For the past 6 months or more, I've been seeing many codes hosted at sourceforge.net as well as other hosting sites "Move to GitHub". A mere Google Search with the phrase "Moved to Github" returns several results containing the text moved to github.…
Chibueze Opata
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If I fork a project on Github that is licensed under MIT, how do I handle the attribution and copyright notice?

If I plan to fork an MIT project and significantly modify and rename it, how do I handle the copyright notice above the MIT license on the main License file. Would I list the original author and my company, or just the original author? What are my…
David
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Making money with Open Source as a developer?

I'm currently a student (Applied Information Technology) and we do most of our programming in C# and Java. I was wondering how can I as a developer, make money with open source. I know there is the story of give support, or provide services, but I'm…
Haproli
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MIT vs. BSD vs. Dual License

My understanding is that: MIT-licensed projects can be used/redistributed in BSD-licensed projects. BSD-licensed projects can be used/redistributed in MIT-licensed projects. The MIT and the BSD 2-clause licenses are essentially identical. BSD…
ryanve
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What does 'Nightly Builds' mean?

I have been using open source projects for a while and been developing upon the open source applications and every so often I come across the words 'Nightly Build' and I have always been curious as to what it actually means. Does it literally mean…
dbramhall
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What is the best practice for arranging third-party library licenses "paperwork"?

I am developing a small open source project. The application uses many third-party libraries released with a range of licenses: Apache, MIT, BSD, LGPL and CDDL. Each of these licenses has its own “paperwork” requirements. For example, the Apache…
Alexey
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Copyright notices/disclaimers in source files

It's a common practice to place copyright notices, various legal disclaimers and sometimes even full license agreements in each source file of an open-source project. Is this really necessary for a (1) open-source project and (2) closed-source…
mojuba
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How should you deal with a popular project that you no longer want to maintain?

I am the maintainer of a project which has a large non-technical userbase. I've been maintaining it for about 4 years now and adding new features as they've been requested. I'd like to move on to other projects now and stop developing for this…
Mendhak
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Are there open source alternatives to Bitbucket, Github, Kiln, and similar DVCS browsing and management tools?

I am aware of several tools/services that provide DVCS browsing and management such as Bitbucket, Github, Kiln, SCM-Manager and Rhodecode. However, the use case I am considering is one such that: Any source code must reside on an employers internal…
Ryan Taylor
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How do I deal with a difficult programmmer joining an open source project?

I have an open source script for a specific site (I'm trying not to call anything by name here) that I and a few other developers recently moved to GitHub. We've gotten several new developers since we moved to the new system, including one very…
Nathan2055
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What is the "default" software license?

If I release some code and binaries, but I don't include any license at all with it, what are the legal terms that apply by default (in the US, where I am). I know that I automatically have copyright without doing anything, but what restrictions are…
Tesserex
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