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Does anyone know of a reference that explains the different open-source licenses in easily understandable, non-legalese terms?
Specifically I'm looking for information about what it means to me when I'd like to use and redistribute some (open-source) library with my own products, e.g. something like this:
a library distributed under license X
can be modified, used and redistributed without restrictions, even in commercial, closed-source products
a library distributed under license Y
may not be modified, but can be redistributed with a commercial, closed-source products
it is required to mention the fact that a product makes use of that library (e.g. by adding some license file, etc)
a library distributed under license Z
may only be used by projects which are also distributed under the same license
This is going to be a big grave dig, but after reading this question I can't help but to slip this link here:
http://www.tldrlegal.com
^Lookup any software license summarized in plain english (What you can, cannot and must do).
There's a list there, with a FAQ: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/
In your case, I think that X=public domain, Y=some commercial licenses, Z=GPL
(modified BSD is similar to Y, but you are allowed to modify them).
The licenses themselves are fairly readable.
Related
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I want the license be general permissive, but:
You can embed my software in your software, but the source code of my part must be distributed with your product, and keep the license of my part unchanged.
You can change and rename my software, but the history part of the change log must be preserved.
You can using my software in your web service, but there must be a source code download link (of my part) somewhere obvious to see in the web page.
Well, there maybe not an exactly equivalent license, but which license seems most fit do you think?
I don't think a generally used license with all these conditions exists.
Sounds like you want elements of both:
The LGPL - which satisfies 1 and generally has the "my part must be open" philosophy
The Affero GPL, which requires sharing code if the software is used over a network (your point 3)
My advice however would be to select a commonly used license that is closest to what you want. Go to http://opensource.org/licenses/category and check out the "Licenses that are popular and widely used or with strong communities"
I'd guess LGPL would be the best fit (it doesn't satisfy your web-service requirements, but that's an uncommon requirement and hard to enforce anyway). LGPL is an excellent choice for libraries where you want the code of the library itself to stay open but don't mind the library being used in a generally permissive way.
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guys, could you please explain what are restrictions for commercial redistribution for these licenses (Apache , BSD , GNU GPL , GNU LGPL , MIT , MPL).
best regards.
In short - the Open licenses (Apache, BSD, MIT) allow just about any type of use, commercial or not, with virtually no strings attached (or control for you over your potential competitors or people who want to 'cheat'), whereas the Free Licenses (GPL, LGPL, etc) generally require you to always provide some rights to the source code to whomever you distribute your release to and this license limits your commercial options.
However above is a gross simplification - and this is far too big a question to be answered here - and to a some extend depends on the country you live in and the countries you do business with.
One of the most authoritative works is http://www.rosenlaw.com/oslbook.htm - Lawrence Rosen's book Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law (ISBN 0-13-148787-6). You are after Chapter 10 - http://www.rosenlaw.com/Rosen_Ch10.pdf -- choosing an open source license. If that is too heavy http://4cff.org/default/index.cfm?LinkServID=C502415F-0288-0063-B060110EE1599F24&showMeta=0 and http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/pick-a-license-any-license.html are much shorter and easier to digest - but are not quite as thourough.
Another good source of information is http://www.opensource.org/.
Thanks,
Dw.
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I am new to the world of open source so please answer accordingly!
I have seen many licenses in use, like GPL, MIT, Apache license. Of course I don't want to be a lawyer, but having at least a basic knowledge of all these would be helpful.
So where do I start? Do I simply read up these licenses? Or is there a book/ website out there that explains all this?
While it's probably not going to help much, I recently had a look at the page Open Source Licenses by Category over at www.opensource.org. Take a look at the category "License that are popular and widely used or with strong communities". I think that would be a good starting point.
While you'd probably have to be a lawyer to really understand and know all implications of every license, you can grasp the main differences by looking at them. Not all license texts are as long as that of GNU's GPL, so don't be afraid to look at them. (The MIT license is a good example. You can read it in about 1 minute's time.)
(The GNU GPL, btw., is considered by some to be the most restrictive open-source license, when it comes to using software in a commercial product. I think that was the initial reason why they came up with the GNU LGPL.)
Some more pointers to other questions here on Stack Overflow:
Corporate-Friendly Open Source Licenses (asked Aug 26 2008) -- mentions the Apache license
Which license should I use for my open source project (asked May 20 2010) -- mentions the GNU LGPL
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I would like to publish my application, which is AGPL. It can be downloaded from my website. But the archive also contains other libraries with different licenses:
XStream (BSD)
GWT (Apache2)
gwt-dnd (Apache2)
gwt-upload (Apache2)
Commons Fileupload (Apache2)
JDOM (Apache-style)
iText (AGPL)
JFreeChart (LGPL)
JavaMail (JavaMail)
I didn't change any of these libraries, I just use them. What do I have to do?
Do I have to mention the used libraries on my website or in the COPYING file in my application archive?
Do I have to mention the authors?
Do I have to mention all the licenses?
Do I have to provide all the licenses somehow to my users?
Since answering to my question could be legal advice and therefore problematic, is there a project online which looks similar to mine? Perhaps there is an "anonymous" answer to my question?
People answering legal or licensing questions are not trying to be evasive. But it's hard to answer licensing questions in a way that can be as accurate as the terms spelled out in the license itself. Trying to interpret legal text can expose one to liability if one gets it even slightly wrong (even non-lawyers can be held liable).
Many questions about GPL are answered in plain English here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
The Apache License 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0) covers terms of redistribution. See for example section 4, paragraph 4.
The New BSD License covers terms of redistribution (for both source and binaries) in the second paragaph. That license in particular is quite short, and easy to read.
Do not make business decisions without consulting with a legal professional.
You will have to provide it for all those libraries that require it as per their respective licensing requirements.
You have to read the licenses, and act accordingly.
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Suppose your for-sale software product uses some free open-source library at runtime. Therefore, you need to distribute the FOSS product in the unchanged, binary form with your product. Which open-source license permits such distribution and under what conditions? I'm particularly interested in three licenses:
Apache 2
MS-PL
MIT
I assume most licenses allow you to distribute the product in binary form. If binary distribution were not allowed it would force every user of the library, and therefore every user of any program that uses the library, to compile it themselves. This would be very impractical.
Usually you just have to provide a way to get the sources for anybody who cares. If you made no changes to the libraries this might be as simple as referring them to the original libraries web page.
That being said, I'm not particularly familiar with the licenses you mention, so you might have to read through them to see what they have to say about binary distribution. It could, for example, be that they require a disclaimer in the binary distribution that states which libraries under that license were used.
The above three licenses all permit such distribution.