Template is unlicensed

[openjck]

I know this code is pretty trivial, but it might it might still help to have a license.

From the GitHub guidance on licensing:

You're under no obligation to choose a license. However, without a license, the default copyright laws apply, meaning that you retain all rights to your source code and no one may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work. If you're creating an open source project, we strongly encourage you to include an open source license. The Open Source Guide provides additional guidance on choosing the correct license for your project.

[openjck]

The license can be excluded for users in degit.json.

[Conduitry]

Ideally, we'd have a template that doesn't force the use of degit to clone it properly. We'd also like to be able to let people download the zip of a branch of github and go from there, with no particular LICENSE file imposed on them. Now that github has an official notion of 'template repos' (which this repo has been marked as), do you know what their recommendation is for LICENSE files in them?

[openjck]

That's a good question. I can't find any official recommendation from GitHub. The easiest solution may be to use a permissive license like MIT or public domain and clearly indicate that the license applies to the template itself, but not necessarily any derivative works. You could also warn the person using the template to change the license after cloning the template.

I'll contact GitHub, pointing them to this discussion, and see if they have any advice.

[openjck]

I should also mention that the choice of license probably matters. I'm not a lawyer, but if the template itself were licensed under the GPL, it would seem that anyone who uses the template would also be obligated to use the GPL. So permissive licenses are probably better no matter how the particulars are communicated to the user of the template.

[openjck]

Here's GitHub's response:

We aren't able to give advice on which license to use for your project. We also are not able to give advice on how to communicate details about your license to other users.

I responded, saying that they didn't seem to fully understand my question, but that may be the best answer we get for now.

[Urethramancer]

Hiya. This is the sort of thing people might want to build upon, and it's harder to fork if people don't know any terms of use for it. I suggest using CC BY or CC0 (the former requires credit, the latter is as liberal as it gets), which should make derivative templates unproblematic, as well as using it at a business where the lawyers are particularly paranoid.

[maxblee]

Would it make sense to add a license to the bottom of the README? Since the README as a whole clearly refers to using this specific template, I think you'd somewhat minimize the likelihood that someone would accidentally give a derivative template a license they don't want, but you'd still be clearly communicating to people that it's safe to fork this repo.

[ItalyPaleAle]

@Conduitry I just noticed the lack of license myself.

Sadly, if there's no license, it means that the code is "All rights reserved" by default. This is really bad because it means that everyone who uses this template to start their own project are doing it illegaly and breaking your copyright. Being the code on GitHub allows everyone to look at it (as per the GitHub's Terms of Service), but it doesn't give anyone rights to use the code or fork it.

Please add a license, it's really important!! You can read more here: https://choosealicense.com/no-permission/

If you're concerned about what license to choose, licenses like MIT are popular because they allow the code to be used in other people's projects no matter the license they use (open source or proprietary). Other licenses like CC0 are even closer to "public domain" (disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice).

[HartS]

Hi, I'm wondering if a license might still be added for this. I'm pushing a trivial project built from this template which I'm licensing MIT; I'm going to note the files which have been taken from the svelte template as UNLICENSED and link to this repo.