Choosing a software license
(With apologies to the memory of Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
How shall I license thee? Let me count the ways
I license thee to be free to distribute and embed
My code can be buggy, when I wrote it late last night
“While” loops have been made without a stated end
I license thee to change and modify
Most urgent need, by emacs and vi
I license thee MIT, as men strive for Right,
I license thee QPL, as they turn from Praise.
I license thee with a Python, put to use
In my old griefs, and with my postdoc’s faith.
I license thee with a license I seemed to lose
With my crashed disk, — I license thee with the BSD
Mozilla, Apache, of all my web-stuff! – and, if Stallman choose,
I shall license thee better with GPLv3.
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