Create LICENSE (very important!)

[carlosmintfan]

The license field was removed from the composer.json for whatever reason in #309
It's very important we add it back or at least create a LICENSE file. This PR does both. We need a licensing permission from the following people that have contributed after the change before @taylorotwell can merge this:
@timacdonald
@nunomaduro
@jbrooksuk
@driesvints
@joedixon
@utsavsomaiya (maybe we don't need permission as he only changed Laracon AU to IN)
@SjorsO
@pabueco
@jasonlbeggs
Note that some, if not all, of these people are Laravel team members.
The following people also have contributed to the project after the license removal but we may not need their permission as they only did minor changes
@choowx # only fixed incorrect href url
@rainx # only removed .DS_Store
@niekatywny # only removed semicolon where it didn't belong
@caendesilva # only updated Discord url
@mpociot # only re-added Herd to news rotation
@nexxai # only fixed a typo about Laracon
@jakebathman # only added 11.x branch to checkout_latest_docs.sh script
@Jubeki # only removed merch from random values

[carlosmintfan]

(I'm not sure if the package.json change should not be done.)

[jakebathman]

So, this repo is for the website laravel.com, not Laravel itself. A Laravel core team member removed a line in a composer file 11 months ago, in a repo not meant for inclusion in other projects, so I'm not sure why you thought this was a mistake.

Additionally, the Laravel website already contains an explicit copyright line in the footer.

Please do not make these kinds of PRs where you @ mention a few dozen people. It will have the opposite effect from what you're expecting.

[crynobone]

Thanks @jakebathman

[carlosmintfan]

??? Yes. There is a copyright line. But there's also a copyright line in Laravel itself's MIT license file that states Taylor Otwell. But that isn't the whole truth, my contributions are my copyright, I only license them (under MIT) - unless there's some contributor license agreement that puts all copyright to the maintainers. So if you don't want to add a license, please tell me: So this is a public repo on GitHub, but I'm legally prohibited or at least not explicitly allowed to 1. use the source code in my own projects 2. contribute to the project 3. You're legally prohibited to continue running your website because it contains contributions that aren't licensed ???
Please forgive me my sharpness. But this is an important topic. Maybe you didn't read the choosealicense link I linked under the text "very important". Please, read it carefully: https://choosealicense.com/no-permission!

[caendesilva]

The website is in a public repo. That does not mean that it's open source, just that it's visible source. Yes, I agree that there should be some license so that contributors can download the code to make edits, and release fixes back. But OP, you're going about this the wrong way. The website is under explicit copyright, so it's not reasonable to assume it should use the MIT License. A simple text stating that contributors may download the code for purposes of contributing and that said contributions fall under the existing copyright terms would be sufficient. The biggest mistake you've made here though is this: By tagging all contributors in the repository, our first impression of you is a negative one. Given your tone, I personally don't feel like you are doing this in good faith. And regardless you don't have any legitimate reason to tag me in this. If you're actually trying to accomplish something that is genuinely good for the project, then you should really read up on good open source etiquette. Anything else is counterproductive.

[carlosmintfan]

Don't understand me wrongly. @caendesilva, I tagged you because you made a contribution to this repo while it wasn't licensed so it would/may be illegal to use it without asking if it would be a big one, but I said we may not need your permission because your contribution was small...maybe I should only have tagged those who made bigger contributions. But why don't you want to license this under MIT but only under some contributor license??? That's not friendly, not permissive. And you're usually permissive guys, aren't you?
What I'm doing here is settling legal unclearities. And I'm getting negative feedback because? I've tagged too many people? Sorry about that, please. But that doesn't mean we have to leave this repo in a legally unclear state. And I'm also going to send GitHub feedback that while they did a great job by creating choosealicense.com, they should present warning banners and notify the maintainers of non-licensed repos.
Now, the thing about explicit copyright. A copyright statement in the project to my understanding doesn't necessarily mean that guy is the only copyright holder. If Laravel would be under GPL and somebody wanted it to be relicensed, would he only need to contact Taylor? I think he'd need to contact all contributors. Yes, that's hard. But that is it. And if the copyright statement would be "The Laravel contributors" instead of just "Taylor Otwell", it would be more clear.
You may wish to read https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects and slimphp/Slim-Website#716 (comment)
Sorry if may tone is too harsh. But that doesn't mean I'm not doing this in good faith. I'll try to update my post to be more friendly.

[carlosmintfan]

The PR description actually doesn't appear very unfriendly to me. It's just pushing without asking a lot...

[carlosmintfan]

Well, my other message was too sharp, maybe. Sorry about that. But please don't tell me to update it, it'd only waste my time :)

[caendesilva]

Don't understand me wrongly. @caendesilva, I tagged you because you made a contribution to this report while it wasn't licensed so it would/may be illegal to use it without asking if it would be a big one, but I said we may not need your permission because your contribution was small...maybe I should only have tagged those who made bigger contributions. But why don't you want to license this under MIT but only under some contributor license??? That's not friendly, not permissive. And you're usually permissive guys, aren't you?
What I'm doing here is settling legal unclearities. And I'm getting negative feedback because? I've tagged too many people? Sorry about that, please. But that doesn't mean we have to leave this repo in a legally unclear state. And I'm also going to send GitHub feedback that while they did a great job by creating choosealicense.com, they should present warning banners and notify the maintainers of non-licensed repos.
Now, the thing about explicit copyright. A copyright statement in the project to my understanding doesn't necessarily mean that guy is the only copyright holder. If Laravel would be under GPL and somebody wanted it to be relicensed, would he only need to contact Taylor? I think he'd need to contact all contributors. Yes, that's hard. But that is it. And if the copyright statement would be "The Laravel contributors" instead of just "Taylor Otwell", it would be more clear.
You may wish to read https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects and slimphp/Slim-Website#716 (comment)
Sorry if may tone is too harsh. But that doesn't mean I'm not doing this in good faith. I'll try to update my post to be more friendly.

I think you're still misunderstanding. Laravel is licences under the MIT License. This repository is for the website which doesn't actually need to be open source, and thus doesn't need an open source approved license. Yes, there should be a license of some kind to release contributed content, but it's a corporate website that doesn't need to be permissive since it's not intended for reuse outside the organization.

The reason I'm questioning if you are doing this in good faith is because in the very resource you linked, it states that you as a software user can nicely ask a maintainer about it if you believe this is an oversight. As demonstrated, this is is not an oversight as a team member removed the license. And regardless, your first step should have been to bring this up with a Laravel representative before tagging everyone.

[carlosmintfan]

Don't understand me wrongly. @caendesilva, I tagged you because you made a contribution to this report while it wasn't licensed so it would/may be illegal to use it without asking if it would be a big one, but I said we may not need your permission because your contribution was small...maybe I should only have tagged those who made bigger contributions. But why don't you want to license this under MIT but only under some contributor license??? That's not friendly, not permissive. And you're usually permissive guys, aren't you?
What I'm doing here is settling legal unclearities. And I'm getting negative feedback because? I've tagged too many people? Sorry about that, please. But that doesn't mean we have to leave this repo in a legally unclear state. And I'm also going to send GitHub feedback that while they did a great job by creating choosealicense.com, they should present warning banners and notify the maintainers of non-licensed repos.
Now, the thing about explicit copyright. A copyright statement in the project to my understanding doesn't necessarily mean that guy is the only copyright holder. If Laravel would be under GPL and somebody wanted it to be relicensed, would he only need to contact Taylor? I think he'd need to contact all contributors. Yes, that's hard. But that is it. And if the copyright statement would be "The Laravel contributors" instead of just "Taylor Otwell", it would be more clear.
You may wish to read https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects and slimphp/Slim-Website#716 (comment)
Sorry if may tone is too harsh. But that doesn't mean I'm not doing this in good faith. I'll try to update my post to be more friendly.

I think you're still misunderstanding. Laravel is licences under the MIT License. This repository is for the website which doesn't actually need to be open source, and thus doesn't need an open source approved license. Yes, there should be a license of some kind to release contributed content, but it's a corporate website that doesn't need to be permissive since it's not intended for reuse outside the organization.

The reason I'm questioning if you are doing this in good faith is because in the very resource you linked, it states that you as a software user can nicely ask a maintainer about it if you believe this is an oversight. As demonstrated, this is is not an oversight as a team member removed the license. And regardless, your first step should have been to bring this up with a Laravel representative before tagging everyone.

Sorry about not being nice. Anyway, I'm sorry you don't wish the website to be licensed permissively in the same manner as the framework. It's just cool if everything is permissive out there. A team member removed the license, yes, but then he/she should have added a different license.

[carlosmintfan]

And, why should we contribute to a project we ourselves can't use the source code of? I mean, of course, there are reasons, but this is spending time on writing code that we ourselves can't use for ourselves in combination with the original code.