I wrote some software for my PhD and it's gaining some traction in my field.
My question is which license should it have?
Currently I have the MIT license, but I'm going off other people in my field.
The ownership of the software is split between me (the author), my mentor (the lab I work in) and the university (because they get a share from all creative content)
I would like people to share and distribute my software, cite me if they make changes, and NOT use it for monetary purposes.
That's to say academics are allow to do whatever they wish to my program, but private companies cannot directly sell my software. Private companies are allowed to use it for their own research and other products, just not allowed to re-sell the actual software.
>For interested peoples it's a software used for genotyping variants in whole genome sequences.
Please no trolls. This is really important for me and I respect Sup Forums's opinion on the matter
I'm not any kind of expert here, but MIT gives anyone the ability to do anything while only giving you credit. Your requirements are atypical and may require a custom license. Even gpl doesn't restrict profiting.
Ryder Phillips
>I would like people to share and distribute my software, cite me if they make changes, and NOT use it for monetary purposes. You answered your own question. GPL.
Robert Hernandez
GPL works for all points except the last
Justin Scott
>GPL >restrict profiting gtfo, kid
Thomas Peterson
Why not one of the CC licences? There is an attribution non commercial license.
Liam Lee
MIT and GPL can both be sold. These aren't the licenses you're looking for. The main difference is that if anyone uses your code they must also open it's source and share any changes (GPL), while MIT basically gives them the right to do anything. To clarify, MIT license means you're giving away your code for anyone to use it in any way they want, including selling it, without having to report anything back to you. GPL would be much better as it forces people to give back the source and thus helps in community software development, but anyone can still sell your software freely.
GPL will prohibit them to sell your code, effectively. >The GPL is a copyleft license, which means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. You can sell the support for the code or code itself (if you find a moron) but you can't include it into some private stuff.
Carson Mitchell
>NOT use it for monetary purposes You need to define what you mean by that. If a company takes your program and uses it for research, but then uses that research to develop and sell things for money, would you be okay with that? Why or why not? On another note, why do you make the distinction between "academic" use and "commercial" use? If someone uses your software and makes some huge breakthrough in the whole field of genetics using that software, that person will gain notoriety, books might be written about him, etc. but you won't see a dime in return. Why is that okay with you, but someone making a profit off of editing, distributing and maintaining your program is bad?
Creative commons are not meant to be used with software, stop acting like 12y old faggot and READ THEIR FUCKING WEBSITE REEEEEEEEEE
Ryder Robinson
There is no popular open source license that can prevent profiting but if you put it as GPL then only open source projects can use it, and they aren't usually profiting projects (especially in bioinformatics). On the other hand, GPL does greatly restrict which software products can use it.
Samuel James
Its simple. Do you care if other people take your code and use it for their own purposes without making their own changes/improvements publicly available? If yes, use GPL. Do you want people to be able to use your code in proprietary software but still want them to open source changes they made directly to your software? Then use LGPL instead.
Kevin Jenkins
Is no one going to ask about that THING on her ass?
Angel Long
If you use MIT in 50 years time when you are a poor cyber-bum Googlosoft will be selling you NanoDNA deciphers with your code in it and you will get nothing for it. NOTHING.
Jack Gonzalez
Thanks for the good suggestions I actually have the CC NC4.0 on the preprint draft
I'm not sure if I can use it for the code...
These are all great suggestions I think I goofed using the MIT license
What's the difference between GPL 2.0 and 3.0? I know Linus and RMS fight over them
>If a company takes your program and uses it for research, but then uses that research to develop and sell things for money, would you be okay with that? Why or why not? Yeah that's fine, but they cannot sell the actual software as a solution. They can use the software for other things but not sell the software as an app.
>On another note, why do you make the distinction between "academic" use and "commercial" use? If someone uses your software and makes some huge breakthrough in the whole field of genetics using that software, that person will gain notoriety, books might be written about him, etc. but you won't see a dime in return.
Well I am aspiring to be an academic and if another academic group uses my program to make a substantial discovery then I get the citation, and subsequent citations from people that read the groundbreaking paper. More citations == better academic position.
It's not considered ethical in my field to make money off academic software unless the authors are given compensation or start their own company. it's a penguin
Kevin Young
In 5/10 years time my software will probably be useless since the field is moving so fast.
The next Next Generation Sequencing technology will probably change my field dramatically. It already is but the technology is error prone. I work in a particular type of mutation that benefits from this new technology.
Jaxon Turner
Your answers contradict each other. >It's fine if a company makes money off of using academic software >It's not considered ethical to make money off of academic software
Landon Bennett
>company A uses software X to make a solution to sell kits that tests for a mutation. They sell the kit that detects mutation. This is ok
>company B sells software X as company B's mutation discovery App Not ok
Chase James
The differences between these two situations are obvious, but how would you begin to enforce this or word the constraint?
>You can only resell what I wrote if you added exactly 3,000 lines of code to it.
Zachary Sanders
No there's a difference between selling a product that is chemistry and code
I'm talking about biology here
It's like if you have a code that designs a chip. The company can use the code to make the chip and sell the chip. But not sell the code itself
Ian Barnes
Oh, fair enough.
Anthony Wilson
>More citations == better academic position. People aren't going to give a shit about the software he used past how he used it to make his discovery. He will move up in the world while you'll be a footnote, at the very best, in his story.
Connor Nguyen
MPL2
Jackson Ward
right because Samtools, GATK, ADMIXTURE, and many others did not make people's academic careers in R1 universities
Gavin Turner
...
Oliver Diaz
Never seen a cutie mark before?
Chase Lopez
>I work in a particular type of mutation that benefits from this new technology.
Are you talking SNP, indel frameshifts, repeats or what?
>The next Next Generation Sequencing technology will probably change my field dramatically. It already is but the technology is error prone.
Are you talking about Illimina HiSeqs, PacBio Sequels, or maybe Ion Torrent/Proton tech?
Curious to know a bit more about your work user.
Jacob Ward
>Are you talking SNP, indel frameshifts, repeats or what? Bigger >Are you talking about Illimina HiSeqs, PacBio Sequels, or maybe Ion Torrent/Proton tech?
Long read technology. Like PacBio SMRT and Oxford Nanopore
I don't want to give too much information because if you google a few terms you can probably find my github and my info
Michael Campbell
so how can other academics use it if they would ultimately profit by it's use eventually
Brody Gray
The only way to profit from gold is to sell it on USB and shit.
Affero GPL, that way fucks don't go and use your library in a SAAS shit-platform without giving you credit. Also put a "do no evil" clause in it so that you know if IBM ever starts using it:
>and NOT use it for monetary purposes that's what Linus Torvalds wanted at first, and now he admits that it was one of its biggest mistake. Later he said how much the GPL made the success of linux. Don't be a cuck, go for the GPL
