Update 20/01/2015: We changed the license to APGL. Have a look at the comments why.  

Many developers in the open source hemisphere just want to contribute code. Reading or understanding licenses is simply annoying. They just don’t care. However, if we don’t pick any license and publish our code on GitHub, this means “nobody else may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work”. And for sure, this is NOT what we are intending.

The website choosealicense from GitHub helps a lot to understand the differences of the most used open source licenses. It’s a good starting point but the main question is not answered, yet: “how do people from the open education community perceive the specific licenses?” MIT (or APACHE) are more permissive than GPL License. The former allows you to copy the code and basically do with it whatever you want. For example, you can copy an open source code, add a feature or two, CLOSE your modified source code and start selling your modified product. The latter requires anyone who uses the code make the source code available under the same conditions. In other words, the modified code from others is open source, too.

Of course, in most cases the former scenario might be totally fine. If you see the source code as tools that you use in a much broader context, for example. But for a truly open source project, does that communicate authenticity? Part of Crowducate’s vision is to learn and share with each other. I hope going for the GPL V3 License will foster contribution.

Best,

Amir

Image Credit: Jen Gallardo (Paper Work)