I am thinking of releasing libraries and frameworks which I have written in Java

Question

I am thinking of releasing libraries and frameworks which I have written in Java to other developers.

I've spent a lot of time researching what open source licenses are available, and the differences between them, however some advice from real people specifically on this matter would be nice.

Basically, I want something that is..

.. easy to understand for other developers

.. it's ok for developers to use and modify the code as they wish

.. keep my copyright notice in the source code, even though the code gets modified and/or redistributed

.. No need to put my copyright notice on the final product in any way, only in the source code as mentioned above

.. it's ok to use the framework in a commercial solution, without forcing the commercial solution to be open source as well (for example if Microsoft Windows would use my library, it wouldn't force Microsoft to release Windows as open source)

.. You are not allowed to sell the libraries or framework alone (however it is ok to bundle it in your own commercial solution, as mentioned above)

.. includes basic "as in" warranty

Three questions:

1) Are there any other important license topics that could be good for a library/framework?

2) Which open source license should I pick and why? (I assume the candidates are MIT, GPL and LGLP)

3) With the license, is it ok to distribute the binaries alone (without the source code, to minimize size) or does that go against the "open source" idea?

Explanation / Answer

The MIT license would be OK, except for this clause:

You are not allowed to sell the libraries or framework alone (however it is ok to bundle it in your own commercial solution, as mentioned above)

MIT doesn't provide this restriction, and neither do the others you mention, and I don't see why you want it.

And the whole point about open source is that you get the source!

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