From this thread that Avi started almost two years ago, and using material from the link http://choosealicense.com he suggested, I believe OSSC members posting code to our wiki have three decisions to make:
1. Post code without a license?
That option probably does not result in the desired outcome. Indeed, from a downstream link http://choosealicense.com/no-license/ we see that
the absence of a license means that default copyright laws apply. This means that you retain all rights to your source code and that nobody else may reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from your work.
Indeed, I don't think our committee has any problem with someone blatantly cutting and pasting code posted on our wiki into their own work. Therefore, it is my opinion that code posted to the OSSC wiki should be accompanied by one of the licenses Avi talks about; otherwise the poster and/or the OSSC could end up with unforeseen dilemmas down the road.
2. Permissive or Restrictive
To simplify the distinction:
Permissive = Use at your own risk, distribute under whatever license you like
Restrictive = Use at your own risk, but if distributed must be under a compatible license
Here's an example of what can go wrong with a Restrictive license. A few years ago I became aware that open-source code I had published under the GPL could be found within proprietary software distributed by a well-known for-profit company. That company clearly violated my license because by law they were required to make that derivative code available as open-source under a compatible license. I don't think the OSSC wants such headaches.
It is my opinion that code posted to the OSSC wiki should be allowed to be used at their own risk by anyone who finds it useful and distributed under whatever license they choose. Therefore, I vote for one of the Permissive licenses. Again, referencing the content at Avi's link http://choosealicense.com (and others), the MIT license looks like a reasonable choice.
3. Copyright
Open-source licenses (including the MIT) require the copyright holder to declare him/herself. This is usually accomplished with a line toward the beginning of the code file that looks something like this
Copyright 2016 Author-Name
I think the person who wrote the posted work should put his or her own name in that line, or multiple names if that is the case, otherwise it may default to the CAS, and I can't imagine the CAS desiring these copyrights.
In conclusion
It is certainly an option for our committee to choose not to take a stance on these questions. In any event, it is my opinion that when individuals post code to our wiki and want to allow other actuaries to copy that code, then those individual posters should select a license — I think the MIT suits our purposes — and include their copyright.