oss-license-strategy skill (samber): pick a license and contributor policy

Chooses an open-source license and contributor policy (DCO, CLA or none) as one decision, then lists the files to ship.

Installs: 12.7K; on skills.sh
Stars: 7; on GitHub
Files: 6; besides SKILL.md
Updated: Nov 2026; last repo commit

oss-license-strategy makes your agent find the constraints first (dependency licenses, employer rules, foundation or procurement rules), then offer two or three postures, pick a license inside the chosen one, and decide what to ask of contributors. It ends with a decision record and the list of license files to add.

It triggers on which license to pick, MIT versus Apache-2.0 or GPL, whether to require a CLA or DCO, relicensing, and which LICENSE, SPDX and NOTICE files to ship. SKILL.md says "Never legal advice". The folder holds SKILL.md and five reference files and bundles no scripts.

Good for

Maintainers open-sourcing a library who need to choose a license
Projects deciding whether to require a CLA or a DCO sign-off
Companies worried about hyperscalers reselling their server software

Install oss-license-strategy

Claude Code

Copy this prompt.

Install the oss-license-strategy skill in Claude Code. Run this command:

/plugin marketplace add samber/developer-relations-skills
/plugin install developer-relations-skills@developer-relations-skills

Then check that it loaded and tell me how to use it.

2
Paste it into Claude Code. It shows the change and asks before running it.

The README recommends installing the whole collection because its skills reference each other, and oss-license-strategy names other skills in the collection to hand work to. The whole-collection routes add all 93 skills in the repo (counted from the git tree); the repo holds no hooks, agents, commands or MCP server files, and 14 of its skills bundle a script. Pick one route per agent.

From the project README. Source.

What's in the skill

When it loads

Chooses an open-source project's license and contribution policy as one decision - permissive vs weak, strong or network copyleft, dependency-driven compatibility constraints, DCO vs CLA vs nothing, dual licensing and open core, source-available options (BUSL, FSL, Elastic License, SSPL), and the fork risk of relicensing. Use whenever someone asks which license to pick, whether MIT, Apache-2.0, GPL or AGPL fits, whether to require a CLA or a DCO sign-off, how to relicense an existing project, whether AGPL really protects against cloud providers, or which LICENSE, SPDX and NOTICE files to ship - even if they only voice a legal worry. Not what the company open-sources at all - use samber/developer-relations-skills@open-source-company-strategy. Never legal advice.

Sections in SKILL.md

Interview
Step 1 - Find the constraints before discussing preferences
Step 2 - Brainstorm postures, do not jump to a license
Step 3 - Pick the license inside the chosen posture
Step 4 - Decide what you ask of contributors
Step 5 - Attach the business model, or say there is none
Step 6 - If this is a change, plan it as a change
Step 7 - Ship the artifacts
Invocation examples
Output shape
Artifact & trigger what ships, and what event the license's obligation attaches to
Constraints dependency licenses, employer/foundation rules, eliminated options
Posture the bundle chosen in step 2, and what it forecloses
Outbound license the license, why it beat the alternatives, who this excludes
Contribution policy nothing / DCO / CLA, the reason, the enforcement mechanism
Business model the lever used or explicitly not used, and the competitor it addresses

Key facts

Author: Samuel Berthe (samber)
License: MIT (LICENSE file, SKILL.md, plugin.json and README all say MIT)
Installs on skills.sh: 12,683 (as of Nov 2, 2026)
GitHub stars: 8 for the whole collection repo (Nov 2, 2026)
Last commit: Nov 1, 2026 (whole repo)
skills.sh audits: Gen Agent Trust Hub pass, Socket pass, Snyk pass
What is inside: 7 files including SKILL.md: 5 reference files and evals/evals.json
Version in SKILL.md: 1.0.1
Needs: SKILL.md lists nothing to install. If the agent can read your repository it reads manifests and lockfiles for dependency licenses
Works in: Claude Code, Claude.ai (plugin marketplace), Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and other Agent Skills-compatible tools
Part of: The developer-relations-skills plugin (one plugin in marketplace.json)
Collection size: 93 skills in the repo (counted from the git tree)

What it includes

Asks up to thirteen questions one at a time until it knows artifact, dependencies, goal.
Questions 7, 11, 12 and 13 (business model, date, policy scope, friction) set the rankings and can delete the CLA rung.
Interview
Lists inbound licenses, combination direction, employer ownership and fixed rules.
If it can read the repository it does this from manifests and lockfiles. The output is a list of eliminated options with a reason each.
Read · Step 1 - Find the constraints
Offers two or three postures and makes you choose before any license is named.
Maximum adoption, reciprocity and commercial optionality are the skill's own working labels, not a published taxonomy.
Step 2 - Brainstorm postures
Matches a license family to the artifact and picks a well-known, unmodified license.
It never drafts or modifies a license. It cites Google's published AGPL policy as a checkable example of an enterprise ban.
Step 3 - Pick the license
Walks Fogel's four rungs: nothing, DCO, CLA and copyright assignment.
It starts at the DCO. It cites Fogel as not recommending copyright assignment for new projects.
Step 4 - Contribution policy
Adds a licensing lever only if a real business model needs one, and plans changes.
A relicense needs the consent of every copyright holder whose code remains unless a contributor agreement already granted it.
Step 5 and 6 - Business model and relicensing
Lists six files and settings to deliver and to validate with a license detector.
LICENSE, per-directory boundary, contribution policy and its check, package metadata, SPDX headers, and NOTICE.
Write · Step 7 - Ship the artifacts
Produces an eight-section record the project can commit.
Artifact and trigger, Constraints, Posture, Outbound license, Contribution policy, Business model, Artifacts and Revisit.
Try: “I'm open-sourcing an internal Go library next week - MIT or Apache-2.0?”
Licensing decision record

From the official docs

Permissions

Low risk

The agent can read your dependency files and propose changes to LICENSE and related files, so compare any license text it writes with the official one and take legal questions to counsel.

What it can do

Read your data
Create and change things
Delete things
Read-only mode

Watch out for

It can propose edits to your license files
Step 7 lists the files to add or change, with exact locations, and says to validate the LICENSE with a detector. Our advice: compare the LICENSE text to the official one and have counsel look at anything beyond a standard license. github.com
It may keep notes in devrel-context.md
SKILL.md tells the agent to store a few details about the current task or project, and to use a file called devrel-context.md when its memory lives in a file. Our advice: open that file before you commit or share the folder. github.com
The plugin route installs the whole collection
The README's plugin and extension routes add every skill in the repo; its git tree holds 93. The repo has no hooks, agents, commands or MCP server files, and 14 of its skills bundle a script. Our advice: use the skills CLI command for this skill if you want only it. github.com

Security advisories

No published security advisories as of Nov 2, 2026.

Technical details

Turning on read-only	SKILL.md describes no read-only mode.
Scopes	May read manifests and lockfiles to enumerate dependency licenses (Step 1) May draft or change LICENSE, NOTICE, SPDX headers and package metadata in your repository (Step 7)

Questions

How do I install oss-license-strategy?

The README says to install every skill in the collection, because its skills reference each other. In Claude Code that is the plugin route in the install box above, which adds all 93 skills in the repo. The skills CLI can add just this one. Our advice: pick one route per agent.

What do I get at the end?

A licensing decision record with eight sections: Artifact and trigger, Constraints, Posture, Outbound license, Contribution policy, Business model, Artifacts and Revisit. It passes six checks, including that every claim is traceable to a license text, a steward's statement or a documented case.

Is this legal advice?

It is not. SKILL.md says "Never legal advice" and tells the agent never to assert what a court would decide or interpret a specific employment contract. It names a patent portfolio, an acquisition, a contested contribution and any live dispute as moments for counsel.

oss-license-strategy vs open-source-company-strategy?

Use this skill to pick the license and contributor policy, and open-source-company-strategy to decide what a company opens at all. SKILL.md says "Not what the company open-sources at all", and the README describes that skill as deciding what a company open-sources and what stays proprietary.

Does it default to MIT or Apache-2.0?

For a small program or library where adoption matters most, SKILL.md defaults to MIT and moves to Apache-2.0 once patents, corporate contributors or a foundation appear. It labels that split its own default; the FSF's recommendation for small programs is Apache-2.0.

Does oss-license-strategy need an API key, and where does it work?

SKILL.md names no API key, account or environment variable. The README documents installs for Claude Code, Claude.ai (add the repo as a plugin marketplace), Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI and any Agent Skills-compatible tool through the skills CLI. The install box has the steps for each.

Is oss-license-strategy safe to install?

It is instructions plus five reference files, and the folder bundles no scripts. The agent may read your manifests and lockfiles and, in Step 7, produce LICENSE, NOTICE and metadata changes for your repository. Our advice: review any license file it proposes against the license's official text, and take legal questions to counsel.

Information

updated Nov 2, 2026

Repository: samber/developer-relations-skills
Folder: skills/oss-license-strategy

samber/developer-relations-skills skills.sh

Sources

Docs, issue trackers and discussions this page is built from.

Show all 2

developer-relations-skills README · github.com
oss-license-strategy SKILL.md · github.com