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I am working on a software project in my college. And I want to make it open source. But I want that people to only contribute to the project. I don't want that they should also release a project using my source with some modifications.

So what will be the best Licence to use with my project ?

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  • Are you planning to use sourceforge or google code? Apart from CC mentioned below I'd also consider GPL or Apache License.
    – ott--
    May 18, 2013 at 16:06
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    @ott GPL and Apache licenses both allow the creation of derivative work that is what omerjerk wants to avoid
    – Remo.D
    May 18, 2013 at 17:31
  • @Remo.D ok, somehow I missed that point.
    – ott--
    May 18, 2013 at 18:52
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    As noted in the answers, there's nothing "Open Source" about this sort of project. May 18, 2013 at 19:48
  • Thank all of you .... I now got the actual meaning of open source.
    – omerjerk
    May 19, 2013 at 4:44

2 Answers 2

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You can distribute the code under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works (by-nd) license, but it will generally not be considered to be open source due to the restriction on derived projects.

If your concern is that different, possibly incompatible, versions would start to float around that claim to be the same software, you might be better of by simply requiring that derived projects don't claim to be an official, sanctioned by you, version. One way to do that is to register a trademark on your project. (See here for an example how that can work.)

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No "Open Source" license would prevent the creation of derivative works, it would defeat the basic purpose of open source which is "make the code public to increase the community knowledge".

You can check the definition at the "Open Source Iniative" web site.

What you look for seems more a "Work for me for free" license, I'm not sure there's one.

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