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Ask HN: What is the risk of using software with a non-standard license?

2 pointsby atarianabout 3 years ago
Sometimes I find libraries on GitHub that I want to use in my app and the only thing in the license is a request to give credit. Are there any legal liabilities that I'm setting myself up for by just going with that?

2 comments

ksajabout 3 years ago
Creative Commons has a CC BY license, which &quot;lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.&quot;<p>This sounds very similar to me. Basically free to use, with attribution. But there is a little more to it than attribution alone.<p>I would put a link to their github repo, even though that wasn&#x27;t requested. By doing that, if the license changes in the future, the paper trail is there to prove the conditions at the time you downloaded the library versions you are currently using.<p>Then just make sure the license doesn&#x27;t change during any future updates. If the license changes, then you have to either abide by the new one, or stick with the old code.<p>BTW: You&#x27;ll need to take care to note the wording. &quot;Use&quot; and &quot;modify&quot; are not the same thing, for example. That probably determines whether you can make changes to it even if the license changes. Basically you&#x27;ll need to make sure there isn&#x27;t an implied &quot;no derivatives&quot; requirement if you need to change the code some time in the future.
brudgersabout 3 years ago
Pay a lawyer to advise you.<p>It is a good test of whether a flaky license is worth considering.<p>Basically, the author has laid a legal minefield by inventing their own terms.