Discussion: License

[adrybakov]

It appears that the consensus is to make the format open-source. Which open-source license should be used?

[mducle]

I would prefer a permissive license like the BSD 3-clause or MIT license, because there is no restriction on how the software can be used except to acknowledge the authors and I think that this will increase the likelihood of adoption. Furthermore, many popular formats use these permissive licenses (e.g. JSON uses a modified MIT license and Markdown was released under the BSD 3-clause license).

Alternatively, if people prefer some form of copyleft protection, then I think that the LGPL is more appropriate than the full GPL as it does not enforce that programs which just use the format without modification need be open source.

[lucas-wilkins]

For the format itself, including any schemas (hint hint), I think it might make sense to have a proprietary licence. I think that in general, when trying to establish standards you don't want people publishing their own minor variants without permission. The point of setting committees for standards is to come up with solutions that have a communities interests at heart. Protecting them from being subverted is probably a good thing.

Not that nepharious computational spin interaction enthusiasts are a real concern, so whatever really.

For the software, make it as permissive as possible, so BSD or MIT.