HACKER Q&A
📣 atarian

What is the risk of using software with a non-standard license?


Sometimes I find libraries on GitHub that I want to use in my app and the only thing in the license is a request to give credit. Are there any legal liabilities that I'm setting myself up for by just going with that?

  👤 ksaj Accepted Answer ✓
Creative Commons has a CC BY license, which "lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation."

This sounds very similar to me. Basically free to use, with attribution. But there is a little more to it than attribution alone.

I would put a link to their github repo, even though that wasn't requested. By doing that, if the license changes in the future, the paper trail is there to prove the conditions at the time you downloaded the library versions you are currently using.

Then just make sure the license doesn't change during any future updates. If the license changes, then you have to either abide by the new one, or stick with the old code.

BTW: You'll need to take care to note the wording. "Use" and "modify" are not the same thing, for example. That probably determines whether you can make changes to it even if the license changes. Basically you'll need to make sure there isn't an implied "no derivatives" requirement if you need to change the code some time in the future.

👤 brudgers
Pay a lawyer to advise you.

It is a good test of whether a flaky license is worth considering.

Basically, the author has laid a legal minefield by inventing their own terms.