We’ve been thinking about our license and the Steem vision. So in accordance with our beliefs in freedom and innovation, we’ve decided to change the Steem license to the MIT open source license.
Source: https://steemit.com/steemit/@steemitblog/steemd-is-now-completely-free-to-use-with-an-mit-license
Some time ago, there was some issues around the STEEM license.
To be honest, I know next to nothing about the different types of licenses.
From what i understand, MIT license means, that people can use your code free of charge, but still have to mention you as a creator. ( Please correct me, if I am wrong )
The other day, I stumbled upon this, though:
This might be a stupid question...
... Does this mean that Steemit Inc reserves the rights, but allows anybody to still use it under MIT license, or does this 'overwrite' the license, or is this simply an artifact, that I should not care about ?
If you could explain this to me like I was a 5 year old, that would be great.
I will pay some tips for the best answers.
Thank you for the update @felixxx.
Steemians appreciate hearing from the witnesses.
All the best.
Cheers.
MIT, GPL and all the other licenses still need a someone holding the copyright to work.
The idea is this: I declare myself as the copyright holder; then I take my right and with that power I set the usage conditions. In case of steem, as it says here, is released with MIT license, which is a free license but less viral than GPL
Looks like an artifact that hasn't been updated yet. Maybe send a pull request to change that if you have the time.
That's the default header of MIT license. Steemit inc and contributors own the copyrights of the project and distributes it under MIT.
You basically state that you own the work and permit other people do whatever they want with the project as long as the original copyright and license notice included in the software source.
yea as the official statement on my screenshot says^^
Source
sorry maybe your question is hard to answer
It is definitely an artifact. Code is always full of unused or outdated info, and you should definitely trust their public statement, not the code.
But just to be sure, you should open up a pull request to remove the copyright in the code and replace it with the MIT license.
Copyright: Internet.
I hate the concept of patents, licenses and intellectual property... they hinder progress, therefore it’s certainly an artifact that I don’t care about... buttt a very interesting question. I never knew Steemit Inc held a copyright on the STEEM code. I wonder if this has implications on third-party dApps...
To my opinion the copyright belongs to Steemit Inc. and the other contributors. They grant others the right to use and/or modify it. In the last case this developers become additional copyright holders on the modified code, but they are forced to grant others the same rights. One point about this is, that in some jurisdictions it is not possible to transfer the copyright, only the usage rights.
(this is definitely no legal advice)
That is the right way:
The owner holds the copyright and gives a MIT license to it.
Open source is working normally in this way, so that you can mention the owner of the original work in your work.