If there's no license then you can't incorporate the code at all. "It's hard to find the license" is not an argument. If you can't find it then you have to assume you can't use it.
"That's a big mistake. If you don't have a license, you're leaving the door open for people to fool with your code."
Given modern copyright law the real problem is actually kind of the opposite, which is that by declaring no licence you are making it legally impossible for people to use your code at all.
> - How to handle cases when there are no license information attached ?
If they have "no" license, it's effectively "all right reserved". You can't legally do anything with the code. Probably it's legal to stare at it, but it's not legal to modify and redistribute it.
It's ironic because usually when there's no license, it's cause the author doesn't care what you do with the code. Anyone who actually cares will say "proprietary" or whatever.
> I read that you can't distribute code that has no license.
You can. It's just that unless otherwise stated, the owner has the copyright in most legislation. Without the license, if you derive from someone's code, he can sue you stating he never granted you the right to use his work.
While I might agree that it would be nice that code without a license was public domain, that's most certainly not the legal situation we have right now. If there's no license, you can't redistribute it at all.
Agreed. I just want to stress that all code is copyrighted. If there is no license granting rights on the code, then you are not allowed to use it. Source-available or not.
Unless you have the right to do so because you are the copyright holder or have a licence you can't distribute code no matter whether you have access to the code or not.
You're using the legal term, I'm using the ordinary definition of the word. In other words, you can't use the code without a patent license, just as you can't use the copyrighted work without permission.
You're splitting hairs. I don't see any value to semantic argument here. The point is, the source code can be gotten, but it's not licensed so that others can use it.
None of your statements contradicts points from my comment, my post, or the coding horror post. If you are releasing code and not putting in a license or doing so improperly, don't expect others to use it. CH focused on one facet (missing a license) while I focused on a different facet (how to add a license properly)
The author doesn't hold copyright on code other people submitted unless they explicitly give ownership via a CLA or similar. A licence would make it clearer, or at least a lot easier for other people to consume.
reply