Non-Software Licenses

Software Licenses

Why not use Creative Commons for Software?

Creative Commons and open content

Creative Commons themselves state that CC licences should not be used for software and recommend using licences approved by the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative.

One reason is that CC licences do not make any distinction between source and object; while this is fine for most simple content resources, for software to be considered as either Free Software or Open Source, access to source code is an essential requirement. In some cases software has been released under a Creative Commons licence but with no access to source code; this does not fall within the definition of either Free Software or Open Source, but could be described as perhaps “gratis” or “freeware” instead.

A second reason is that CC licences are not compatible with the GPL, and any CC licences involving the ND and NC clauses are incompatible with any Free Software or Open Source licence.

It may be tempting to select an Creative Commons licence for software on the grounds that the range of software licences is quite extensive and possibly confusing. However, this is likely to cause more problems than it will solve.