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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-09T10:04:09+00:00

I’m having some trouble recently with the open source licenses. I started to feel

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I’m having some trouble recently with the open source licenses. I started to feel like if they are somehow tricky! So, I’m just asking about the rights, attribution and so on..

Know, if I for example used a Ruby Gem, licensed under GPL, I install the gem, use it, my web app works! But there is no referring to the Gem, how is behind it, its license. I can’t just believe that I have to include those for every gem I’m using. Do I have to? Or can I just use it silently?

So, a website with Rails (MIT), some GPL ruby gems, and so on, what should I include publicly? I think I’m not going to modify the source code of any of those gems.. Yeah, and if I have to attribute in my web pages, do I have to link to the licenses or even worse distribute my source code under the same license?

Also, if I found a tutorial or something like that that is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC, should I distribute my whole work or put it under the same license, if I wasn’t going to run them outside my own server? What if I wanted to distribute my software, which used ideas (and modified code) from the tutorial?

What about using formulas, which are more general than being owned? One-liner commands from stackoverflow when a gem doesn’t install – Should I attribute that I used that to install the gem?! I think of course not, but just asking to make sure of the whole thing..

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  1. Editorial Team

    A website is normally the output of a program. Like you save a text-document with your word processor in disk, the document itself does not fall under the reciprocal license of the proprietary word processor (MS Word) or the reciprocal and permissive licenses of the free software word processor (Open or Libre Office Writer).

    Only in case you create and distribute derivative or combined works (e.g. packaging multiple programs together in one package) you need to care about the licenses.

    That for sure always depends on the concrete things you do. You need to document these concrete things, then go to your lawyer and then find out for the stuff you exactly do if and how copyright is in effect and based on the licenses used and if in effect, which steps you need to do.

    Here on SO we are all only software developers (or if lawyers, not your lawyer) so we can not give you any legal support.

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