Related Research Articles
Free software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price; all users are legally free to do what they want with their copies of a free software regardless of how much is paid to obtain the program. Computer programs are deemed "free" if they give end-users ultimate control over the software and, subsequently, over their devices.
The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license compatibility.
The Apache License is a permissive free software license written by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). It allows users to use the software for any purpose, to distribute it, to modify it, and to distribute modified versions of the software under the terms of the license, without concern for royalties. The ASF and its projects release their software products under the Apache License. The license is also used by many non-ASF projects.
The FreeBSD Documentation License is the license that covers most of the documentation for the FreeBSD operating system.
The Academic Free License (AFL) is a permissive free software license written in 2002 by Lawrence E. Rosen, a former general counsel of the Open Source Initiative (OSI).
The Open Software License (OSL) is a software license created by Lawrence Rosen. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has certified it as an open-source license, but the Debian project judged version 1.1 to be incompatible with the DFSG. The OSL is a copyleft license, with a termination clause triggered by filing a lawsuit alleging patent infringement.
CeCILL is a free software license adapted to both international and French legal matters, in the spirit of and retaining compatibility with the GNU General Public License (GPL).
A permissive software license, sometimes also called BSD-like or BSD-style license, is a free-software license which instead of copyleft protections, carries only minimal restrictions on how the software can be used, modified, and redistributed, usually including a warranty disclaimer. Examples include the GNU All-permissive License, MIT License, BSD licenses, Apple Public Source License and Apache license. As of 2016, the most popular free-software license is the permissive MIT license.
Alternative terms for free software, such as open source, FOSS, and FLOSS, have been a controversial issue among free and open-source software users from the late 1990s onwards. These terms share almost identical licence criteria and development practices.
This comparison only covers software licenses which have a linked Wikipedia article for details and which are approved by at least one of the following expert groups: the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, the Debian Project and the Fedora Project. For a list of licenses not specifically intended for software, see List of free-content licences.
The Python License is a deprecated permissive computer software license created by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). It was used for versions 1.6 and 2.0 of the Python programming language, both released in the year 2000.
The ISC license is a permissive free software license published by the Internet Software Consortium, now called Internet Systems Consortium (ISC). It is functionally equivalent to the simplified BSD and MIT licenses, but without language deemed unnecessary following the Berne Convention.
WTFPL is a permissive free software license, compatible with the GNU GPL. As a public domain like license, the WTFPL is essentially the same as dedication to the public domain. It allows redistribution and modification of the work under any terms. The title is an abbreviation of "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License".
Public-domain-equivalent license are licenses that grant public-domain-like rights and/or act as waivers. They are used to make copyrighted works usable by anyone without conditions, while avoiding the complexities of attribution or license compatibility that occur with other licenses.
The University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License, or UIUC license, is a permissive free software license, based on the MIT/X11 license and the 3-clause BSD license. By combining parts of these two licenses, it attempts to be clearer and more concise than either.
A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder of a piece of software can remove these restrictions by accompanying the software with a software license which grants the recipient these rights. Software using such a license is free software as conferred by the copyright holder. Free-software licenses are applied to software in source code and also binary object-code form, as the copyright law recognizes both forms.
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have share-alike requirements. The original BSD license was used for its namesake, the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), a Unix-like operating system. The original version has since been revised, and its descendants are referred to as modified BSD licenses.
The MirOS Licence is a free content licence originated at The MirOS Project for their own publications because the ISC license used by OpenBSD was perceived as having problems with wording and too America centric. It has strong roots in the UCB BSD licence and the Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer with a focus on modern, explicit, legible language and usability by European, specifically German, authors. It is a permissive (“BSD/MIT-style”) licence.
The Fair License is a short, simple and permissive free software licence which is compatible with the GNU General Public License. Its text is composed of only one sentence and a disclaimer, thus being the shortest license ever approved by the Open Source Initiative. It is also possible to use the Fair License for images, books, music or more generally all kinds of media. The text of the license is as follows:
<Copyright Information> Usage of the works is permitted provided that this instrument is retained with the works, so that any entity that uses the works is notified of this instrument. DISCLAIMER: THE WORKS ARE WITHOUT WARRANTY.
The Unlicense is a public domain equivalent license with a focus on an anti-copyright message. It was first published on January 1, 2010. The Unlicense offers a public domain waiver text with a fall-back public-domain-like license, inspired by permissive licenses but without an attribution clause. In 2015, GitHub reported that approximately 102,000 of their 5.1 million licensed projects use the Unlicense.
References
- ↑ Dodson, Bruce (29 November 2002). "discuss: approval request: "Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer"". license-discuss (Mailing list).
- 1 2 3 4 "Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer". Various Licenses and Comments about Them. Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 29 May 2015.
- 1 2 Dodson, Bruce (29 November 2002). "Historical Permission Notice and Disclaimer (HPND)". Open Source Initiative. Retrieved 24 January 2014.