Like many other people I read this meta post. Since I don't really understand what is at stake I became confused and worried.Does this mean that I can legally force any organization to let me see the source code of any application touched by a questioner when I give an answer to their question? Does this mean that I open up any organization I'm associated with to this liability when I ask a question? Finally will SO be required to release identifying information so people can check if rights were violated? It seems to me that this move will induce code attribution trolls like patent law released the patent trolls. I seem to recall Oracle antagonizing Google in court over a simple algorithm in Android code...Or I could just put in the terms and conditions something to the effect of: The lines of code that were derived from or generated by the kind folks who contributed to the Stack Exchange network are licensed under the MIT license. Everything else is licensed under XYZ license. Then I would be in full compliance?What are some of the big ramifications that I'm not knowledgeable enough to foresee?
Ramifications of the proposed new SE licensing model
licensing;derivative works;mit;attribution
I posted an answer to the announcement post that pretty much sums up why part of this - the exception - is a bad idea:You're essentially creating a crayon license.  If you modify the terms of an existing license, you create what is known as a crayon license. Those are a problem - see How can a crayon license be a problem? for the reasons why.It's far too easy to claim an illegal use is legal.  See this answer of mine. Essentially, someone can get my code from somewhere I use it - perhaps in a commercial open-source product of mine - and not attribute it to me. When I chase them down on that, they can simply claim oh, I got it from Stack Overflow, and get away scot-free.It's massively unclear how to reverse that requirement.  Say I don't want to have this extra exception applied to any of my code. How do I note that? If I put a note in my user profile that all my code snippets must be attributed properly as per the terms of the full MIT, is that enough? Do I have to add a note to every answer? I'd rather not have to do that, but I also don't want to be chasing people down endlessly for misusing my code.So what does this change mean? Let's answer some of your questions:Does this mean that I can legally force any organization to let me see the source code of any application touched by a questioner when I give an answer to their question?No. The code that came from the answer (or whatever post you got it from) is under the MIT license with an SE-specific exception. That means that the code can be used in a commercial, closed-source application (as the standard MIT allows), without the original license being included (which is provided for by the exception). Some reasonable attribution must be included at the request of the code author, but that doesn't have to be the full license document.Finally will SO be required to release identifying information so people can check if rights were violated?Nope. There's nothing in either the license, the exception, the SE TOS, or any other pertinent laws that requires them to do this.Or I could just put in the terms and conditions something to the effect of:...Then I would be in full compliance?Conditional yes. If none of the individual code authors asked you to attribute them, that's perfectly sufficient. However, if one of them does ask you to attribute them, you should then include their name, a link to their profile, and a link to the original source of the content. No MIT license document required, still.