Liberal Licenses

The licenses available to the general public, other than the Liberal Licenses, do not provide a balance between the liberties of the licensor and the liberties of the licensee. These licenses either restrict the usage of the licensed material to a specific licensee, purpose etc., mostly in exchange for a payment, and do not grant any other rights or these licenses force the licensor to grant almost all possible rights (as we can see in the open source licenses) and as a consequence the creator of a work cannot commercialize that work adequately.

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You wish to license your work and you want your work can spread quickly by free distribution? You want everybody can use your work fair and for free, but entities which plan to make profit with your shared work shall share that profit in return? Then consider the Liberal Licenses as a solution for you!

You want to allow your licensees to repair and improve your work by themselves if they need it for their specific purposes just for themselves, but you do not want anybody to distribute an improved version of your work? Licensees shall not depend on your abilities to fix defects and to adapt your work for specialized purposes, but you want to keep control over future versions and commercialize them perhaps? Then consider the Liberal Licenses as a solution for you!

You do not want your work to be used by the administration of a country which does not respect fundamental freedoms like human rights, civil rights, political rights and democratization? You do not want such a country to profit from your work or to misuse it against the fundamental freedoms? You are ready to take a stand for freedom, justice and fairness in the world? Then consider the Liberal Licenses as a solution for you!

Core idea

The core idea of these licenses is to maximize the freedom of the licensor and the licensee at the same time by a fair balance between the interests of the licensor and the rights of the licensee, which means in this licensing context, to grant rights to the licensee to the extend no significant negative impact on the (commercial) interests of the licensor can be expected. In other words, the licensee may take all these liberties which do not restrict the licensor to take