software licensing
How to create wholly proprietary (private) software license
<p>This should be obvious, but I searched for a while and could not come up with a definitive answer:</p>

<ul>
<li>What license should I use if I don't want software to be shared at all?</li>
</ul>

<p>Let me explain the use case:</p>

<ul>
<li>We are creating a software product that is partly being licensed to our client, but there are other parts which we do not want to be licensed or shared at all.  We want it to be proprietary.  I understand that we can and should simply hide it.  That is what we're planning on doing.  But I would also like to establish a license somewhere to explicitly say that everything associated with the packages under this area are not to be shared, and if they somehow came across it, that was mistaken.

<ul>
<li>(I.e., while keeping things secret is best, at least letting folks know they should never have seen it is a nice fallback.)</li>
</ul></li>
</ul>

<hr>

<p>I am not a lawyer, and have until now always been able to use some sort of open source license or simply avoided a license since it was clear the software would always remain private.</p>

<p>If you don't want someone copying your stuff you don't need a licence at all - that is the default way copyright works.</p>

<p>Simply put a copyright notice in the deployment and any splash screen or about screen.</p>

<p>If you write software, nobody can use it at all, in any way, shape or form, without your permission (license). That would mean that the people you are writing the software for cannot actually use it, unless you grant them a license. The courts would ultimately decide that you had implicitly granted them a license, but the exact nature of that license is not self-evident, and it's never better to let the courts sort out what you should have said in the beginning. (In the case of the previous works that you created without bothering with a license, there is some risk of misunderstanding and litigation down the line. The courts may find that the <a href="https://www.finnegan.com/en/insights/implied-licenses-in-software-licensing.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">implied license</a> in your sale of software includes rights that you didn't intent to grant).</p>

<p>You need to write a license agreement that explicitly states what rights you retain and what rights you grant. If you are writing software for a client, you have to license it <em>all</em> to them, in one form or another: otherwise, they cannot legally install or execute the software.</p>

<p>It is possible to write a complex license that grants permission to use and redistribute parts A, B, C of the software, but licenses only the use of part D, in a very restricted manner (for example, one a single copy can be installed on a central server, whatever technical details are necessary to restrict access in the way you want). The license agreement would need to say clearly and unambiguously what is allowed versus prohibited: saying "you cannot share" is very unclear, since you're not saying what counts as "sharing". An attorney with experience in software licenses would be appropriate.</p>

<p>You can include a LICENSE file that describes the project as proprietary: <a href="http://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/68150">http://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/a/68150</a></p>
