Toollizenz/draft/en

To keep with the successful spirit of free licensing for all Wikimedia projects, the tools on the Toolserver are also freely licensed. This allows users to collaboratively develop tools, and take over maintenance of a tool when its original author leaves.

Default licensing
The source code of every tool is licensed under a free (like BSD) or GPL-compatible license by default, if it is at all possible. If this is not possible due to a less free component (like a code library), the source code adopts the license of the library by default.

Source code is exempted from this if it is explicitly licensed. A tool's license can be explicitly licensed in a comment at the top of its source code, or visibly in its user interface. If there is no such information, the default licensing applies.

Transition rules
Because many tools are not freely licensed as of February 2010, the following transitional rules apply.


 * Default licensing applies to:
 * all tools written after 1 April 2010;
 * all multi-maintainer projects created after 1 April 2010;
 * all accounts accepted after 1 April 2010;
 * all tools and accounts by users who renew their accounts beyond 1 June 2010.

Tools written before 1 April 2010 or written by a user who did not renew beyond 1 June 2010 are not subject to default licensing.


 * Footnotes