Requiring Attribution: good idea?

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by quinxorin

I was wondering what people thought about requiring attribution for use of copyleft-licensed creations by FIRST teams for FIRST teams, intended to be used publicly. Is this considered rude? Specifically, I'm refering to my team's Lightning Robotics Match Results Retrieval System. It allows free use and modification, but requires attribution both in any redistributed copies and on the actual website pages that use it. Is it ok to require teams to say on their website that they're using technology that was developed by a different team (obviously it's legally ok, but is it socially ok)? Would it discourage teams from using it?

Best not to be too picky about the method of attribution, but definitely alright to require attribution in some form.

If your licence says something about attribution, then the teams have to follow its instructions. You probably shouldn't impose any conditions over and above what's in the licence—this can lead to conflicts with unintended consequences. (Depending on the terms and how you phrase your requirements, you might invalidate the licence, or instead end up effectively dual-licencing it.)