About

OpenRockets® Open-Source

OpenRockets Press offers four licenses for creators to choose from when they publish. Three of them, OpenRockets Beaver, OpenRockets Kangaroo, and OpenRockets Hummingbird, were written specifically to answer a question that most existing open source licenses never had to address, what happens when the author of a piece of software or code is not old enough to sign a contract. The fourth option, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, is offered alongside them for creators who would rather use a license the rest of the world already recognizes. This documentation explains what each license covers, who can use the work under it, and what is required in return.

OpenRockets Beaver

OpenRockets Beaver protects software and code published by creators under the age of eighteen. It is a semi open source license, so the license only opens fully to other minors. Another minor anywhere in the world may copy a Beaver licensed project, share it, or build a derivative version of it, provided they cite the original OpenRockets Press page it came from.

Adults and the general public may view a Beaver licensed project freely, but they may not use it, meaning copy it, run it inside a product, or build on top of it, without asking first. We require adults to submit a request through a form at openrockets.com/licenses/request, and we review each request on the original creator's behalf. We built this process because a minor should not be expected to personally negotiate with a company or a stranger who wants to use their work, so OpenRockets Press acts as the party in the middle, deciding whether the requested use lines up with our fair use policy before granting or denying it.

We handle two kinds of use differently. When we can determine on our own that a use of the code clearly falls under fair use, we approve that use automatically, without a person on our team needing to step in. When someone submits a formal request to use a Beaver licensed project in a way that is not automatically covered, a member of our team reviews the request by hand, records the decision alongside the project it concerns, and updates the relevant pages once a decision has been made.

Minors do not need to file any request to reuse another minor's Beaver licensed work. Citation is enough. Leaving out that citation is treated as a violation of the license, in the same way that leaving out a citation on any other copyrighted work would be.

We are currently in the process of formally registering Beaver as a recognized license.

OpenRockets Kangaroo

OpenRockets Kangaroo is our fully open license. Where Beaver keeps adults and the general public behind a request process, Kangaroo removes that barrier entirely. Software and code published under Kangaroo may be copied, used commercially, used for nonprofit work, turned into a derivative project, and shared again, by anyone, with no request required.

The one condition we attach to Kangaroo is citation. Anyone who uses a Kangaroo licensed project must credit the original minor by name and link back to the original OpenRockets Press submission as the source.

OpenRockets Hummingbird

OpenRockets Hummingbird sits between the other two licenses. It is open to both minors and adults, and there is no request process to go through. Anyone may copy a Hummingbird licensed project and use it exactly as published. The one thing Hummingbird does not permit, for minors or adults, is derivative work. It is a non derivative license, so a project may be reused and redistributed as a whole, but it may not be modified and republished as something new.

Anyone who reuses a Hummingbird licensed project must display the source link, or the source link together with the original creator's name, prominently alongside it.

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

OpenRockets Press also supports Creative Commons Attribution 4.0, the license maintained by Creative Commons in Mountain View, California. It is the option for creators who would rather use a license the rest of the world already recognizes, rather than one written specifically for minors. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 lets anyone distribute, remix, adapt, and build on a published work, in any medium and any format, as long as proper credit is given back to the original creator. The full terms are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Thank you.

Ryan Chan Management Team, OpenRockets Inc. ryan@openrockets.com