software licensing open-source-software
Does the software we use to write code affect the licenses we must use?
<p>I am a junior software developer and found the licensing confusing, partly because senior devs around me have no idea either.</p>
<p>Below I explore scenarios where a software developer uses other software. For example, I make up here three cases:</p>
<ul>
<li>Dev uses a <strong>Linux Distro</strong>, and inside Linux the code editor <strong>VSCode</strong>, and also runs other programs without ever glancing at the source code - to learn from the output.</li>
<li>Dev distributes a program that imports other people's programs</li>
<li>Dev only runs software and uses the result of those programs in the code.</li>
</ul>
<p>For the first case, I would assume that my duties are only with the source code, so the first item is fine.</p>
<p>For the second one, if you distribute code that uses other people's code, then you should make sure the license is correct, and will depend on which imports you have.</p>
<p>For the third one, I am not sure what is the solution, so any clarifications are welcome.</p>

<p>In general, the output of a program is not copyrighted by the author of the program. When you write a novel in Word, Microsoft doesn't own any copyright in your novel. When you prepare financial statements with Excel, Microsoft doesn't own any copyright in those either.</p>
<p>There can be exceptions. Some programs (like GNU Bison, a parser generator) actually do output parts of their own source code, and their source code is copyright to the author. To clarify things, GNU made a statement in the license for Bison that officially says they don't have copyright to what it outputs. You should expect programs of this type to have such an exception, and if they don't, maybe ask the author or don't use them.</p>
