
Ask HN: Why are there open-source software licenses? - rer
Would we be worse off if there weren&#x27;t any?
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ankurdhama
So that the closed source people can't copy open source and sell them as their
products and if they do then open source people have the "legal tool" aka the
license to tackle them legally.

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cocktailpeanuts
then it would simply mean it is not open. When someone creates something, by
default it's "closed" and it's their property. If you take that code and use
it when there's no permission, that's stealing. If you want to "open" up your
code so anyone can use it, you should explicitly tell people they can take it
for free. Meet license.

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rer
Sentences are creations. Does this mean every sentence we write on HN or say
to each other by default is closed and needs a license?

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gus_massa
Actually yes, but so most sites has some legalese in the TOS and there is also
fair use.

IANAL. TINLA. You can probably quote a comment from one HN user, but if you
copy all the comments from one "famous" user of HN and write a book with them,
then you'll probably get some copyright problems.

