Redistribution of open-source code [closed]

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I am working on application which will help to immediately start website development with CodeIgniter. Those, who are familiar to CodeIgniter, knows, that "out of the box" there are only core modules enabled. My application will ask user for expected functionality, and generate bootstrap for fast start.

I've been working with CodeIgniter for a long time, so I have my own developments for functionality enhancement. As well, I want to use some open-source third-party libraries, to include them, if necessary.

Then I will distribute my application on GPL licence.

My question is about legal aspects.

With CodeIgniter framework everything is clear, because they have licence.txt file, where all requirements on redistribution are stated clearly.

But how about third-party libraries, which don't have any information on redistribution? Do I have to contact their authors or I can just shamelessly use their code for my own purposes?

Answer 1

You can follow what I did with Symfony:

I created a blank project (read to go) with the framework and a plugin (sfAltumoPlugin): https://github.com/homer6/blank_altumo

Which is contained as a git submodule: https://github.com/homer6/sfAltumoPlugin

Which then contains the library that is independent from the framework: https://github.com/homer6/altumo

So, the code that is reusable and project independent, but is dependent on the framework (in your case code igniter), would go in the plugin. The code that is independent of the framework would go in the main library (altumo, in my case).

So, when it's separated out like this, you can clearly list the licenses that were used in the licensing heading in your readme.md. Try to stick to liberal OSS licenses, like MIT, if you can. However, if it's OSS, you don't have to contact the library maintainers. So even GPL would allow you to integrate the libraries into yours (because you're redistributing the entire source of your library and theirs).

Hope that helps...

Answer 2

Most open source code has some sort of license arrangement. In other words, they'll state in some file what the terms of useage are. This prose could be in a readme or even a code header.

Here is an article on open source licensing that describes the most popular types. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/24/a-short-guide-to-open-source-and-similar-licenses/

If there is no such information anywhere in your 3rd party packages, you might want to contact the authors. Most are pretty liberal with the usage of their code, otherwise they would have commersial licenses.

Edit: This answer is assuming that all the code in your project is open source.