[Proposal] — Include licenses in software packages

[flexseth]

Examples in this repo represent a starting point for code that is open source, but no license is explicitly provided.

If someone adapts part of the repo, works on it, and then ships code or includes it in a public repository, they are offering the software up without a license.

The GPL covers WordPress Core files, but there isn't a license defined by default in the plugins folder - where many of these modules may be found or iterated on.

Proposal

Introduce the idea of licensing in the block development examples repo.

The why

As software developers level up their skills, ultimately it would be good to know about licensing of proprietary software. The Block Development Examples repo offers boilerplate code for developers to learn and build software out, so it's possible to also introduce the idea of how they should expect their clients to be able to use and re-distribute the software.

Setting expectations for what future users, contributors and collaborators, should be able to do and expect of the software.

Use, modify, re-distribute - etc....

Some packages include a license in their manifest, such as the SlotFill example

However, no license file is provided in the codebase for this example.

Licensing use cases

Contributor builds the packages via the provided pnpm workflow

• a standard license could be included via the scaffolded files
• use the same license that applies to WordPress Core (GPL v2+)

Using an individual block/plugin

• request / require (via the "new" workflow) - a license to be bundled with the software example

WordPress's license

Please let me know your feedback!