We collect answers to questions around open source software licensing issues. If you have a question that you think might be of interest to other people as well, please let us know.
StackOverflow
- Q: Is it ok if my software contains code chunks from Stack Overflow and similar platforms?
- A: Depends on the platform. Code on StackOverflow is currently licensed under one of the CC BY-SAs, see https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing. This allows re-use, but under conditions that are not trivial to satisfy. Get specialised legal advice, if you must use such code.
AI / LLM / ChatGPT
- Q: Is it ok if my software contains chunks of code generated by AI (e.g., ChatGPT)
- A: Code from output of large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT might well be subject to copyright, but you might have a hard time to find out by whom and whether it is licensed in a manner suited for re-use. This question is subject to current discourse in the respective specialised legal communities. If you want to publish software that contains code you got from an LLM such as ChatGPT, you need to make sure that ChatGPT didn’t plagiarize that code and that such re-use is conformant with the terms of use of the respective service.
CRAN
- Q: I am using CRAN packages. What does that mean for licensing my software that depends on them?
- A: CRAN packages might have different licenses. On the packages’ page on CRAN (e.g. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/zoo/index.html) there is a field “License”. Usually CRAN packages have a well known Open Source license and can be used perfectly fine as part of another Open Source project. Just use AGPLv3.
- Q: What about development-versions of CRAN packages on GitHub?
- A: Usually no problem. Just follow the guidance above.