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- Open source licenses allow commercial use, proprietary modifications, and closed-source derivatives. Free software licenses restrict these to protect user freedoms. Open source focuses on the practical benefits of open development. Free software focuses on the ethical imperative to respect user freedoms.
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What is an Open Source License? Open source software licenses govern how others – besides the originator – can use, modify, or distribute software code. They grant other users the permission and rights to use or repurpose the code for new applications or to include the code in other projects.
Jan 14, 2024 · An open source license is a legal agreement that specifies the terms under which software source code can be used, modified, and distributed. Open source licenses aim to encourage collaboration and the free exchange of ideas by allowing others to access, modify, enhance, and reuse source code for their own projects.
Oct 30, 2017 · An important distinction of both free and open-source software is that works based on free or open-source source code must also be distributed with a FOSS license. Software released into the public domain does not have this requirement.
- Mark Drake
Nov 2, 2021 · Broadly speaking, open-source software licenses make the source code available for use, modification, and distribution based on agreed-upon terms and conditions. There are many different open-source software licenses, and they vary based on the restrictions a creator may want future users to abide by.
- What Is Open Source?
- What Is A License and Why Would I Need One?
- What Options Are there?
- "Copyleft" Licenses: Gpl, AGPL, LGPL
- Permissive Licenses: MIT, Bsd, Apache, ...
- Creative Commons
- Public Domain, Cc0, Unlicense, ...
- So How Do I License My Open Source Project?
- Tl;Dr
- Further Reading
Many people think that Open Source simply means availability of the source code of a project, but that does only tell part of the whole story. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) provides a commonly accepted definitionof what constitutes Open Source. To summarize that, in order to be constituted Open Source, 1. a work has to allow free redistribution,...
Any work that you create by default makes you the copyright holder of it. That means only you are allowed to distribute whatever you created. If you want to transfer this right to other people as well, you can do that via a so-called license. Consider it a set of rules that define how others may use, distribute, modify and otherwise interact with t...
Thankfully you do not have to write your own license (and frankly, neither should you, there be dragons). There are a multitude of existing licenses for you to choose from already, and I'm going to introduce you to some of the most common ones. Please note that I'm going to focus on Open Source software licenses here, so licenses that fulfill the O...
Remember when I said that you could require anyone who modifies your work to share its source as well? Having to adhere to similar terms is commonly referred to as being viral and the most popular member of the family of viral Open Source licenses are the so called copyleft(in contrast to "copyright") licenses GPL, AGPL and LGPL. The GPL, or GNU Pu...
If the copyleft philosophy isn't your thing for any reason, there is a family of quite permissive Open Source Licenses that are not viral but still offer attribution and protection against liability. The MIT, BSD and Apache licenses are all pretty similar. All of them require that attribution must be kept in place, warranty & liability are strictly...
If you are into hardware development, you might have come across the family of Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons is a bit like a choose-your-own-adventure of licensing - you have a base license which rules out warranty, and various modules that you can attach to it as well if you want: 1. BY: requires the author to be stated 2. SA: any de...
It might happen that you also come across software that has been released into the Public Domain, meaning that all copyright claims have been forfeit. This concept seems to be quite attractive to people who really just want to set their code free and don't care at all what happens to it. It should be noted that even though this might seem a quite c...
Depending on whether your project is stand-alone or building on the work of others, there are different things to consider. If you are creating a standalone project, you can freely decide on a license. Take a look at other projects in your development community, or similar projects, and what they have chosen. Make sure you understand the license yo...
Unless you put a license on your source code, your exclusive copyright applies and no one can really utilize your code. There is a huge number of available licenses to choose from, and before you decide on one you should make sure you understand it, are comfortable with it and also don't run into any kinds of incompatibilities with things you depen...
The OSI's open-source criteria focuses on the availability of the source code and the advantages of an unrestricted and community driven development model. Yet, many FOSS licenses, like the Apache License, and all Free Software licenses allow commercial use of FOSS components.
Open-source licenses are software licenses that allow content to be used, modified, and shared. They facilitate free and open-source software (FOSS) development. Intellectual property (IP) laws restrict the modification and sharing of creative works. Free and open-source licenses use these existing legal structures for an inverse purpose.
