Source-available software

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Source-available software is software released through a source code distribution model that includes arrangements where the source can be viewed, and in some cases modified, but without necessarily meeting the criteria to be called open-source . [1] The licenses associated with the offerings range from allowing code to be viewed for reference to allowing code to be modified and redistributed for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. [2]

Contents

Distinction from free and open-source software

Any software is source-available in the broad sense as long as its source code is distributed along with it, even if the user has no legal rights to use, share, modify or even compile it. It is possible for a software to be both source-available software and proprietary software (e.g. id Software's Doom ).

In contrast, the definitions of free software and open-source software are much narrower. Free software and/or open-source software is also always source-available software, but not all source-available software is also free software and/or open-source software. This is because the official definitions of those terms require considerable additional rights as to what the user can do with the available source (including, typically, the right to use said software, with attribution, in derived commercial products). [3]

In the broad sense, any FOSS license is a source-available license. In the narrow sense, [1] the term source-available specifically excludes FOSS software.

Non-free licenses

The following source-available software licenses are considered non-free licenses because they have limitations that prevent them from being open-source according to the Open Source Initiative and free to the Free Software Foundation.

Commons Clause

The Commons Clause, created by Fossa, Inc., is an addendum to an open-source software license that restricts users from selling the software. Under the combined license, the software is source-available, but not open-source. [4]

On August 22, 2018, Redis Labs shifted some Redis Modules from the GNU Affero General Public License [5] [6] to a combination of the Apache License 2.0 and the Commons Clause. [7] [8]

In September 2018, Matthew Garrett criticized Commons Clause calling it an "older way of doing things" and said it "doesn't help the commons". [9]

Business Source License

Business Source License has been introduced by MariaDB Corporation in 2016 and rapidly became one of the most adopted "delayed open source" licenses. [10] It prohibits use of the code in production environments, where a commercial license is required. [11]

Functional Source License

Functional Source License has been introduced in November 2023 by Sentry, as a simpler alternative to Business Source License. [12] It prohibits any "competing" use of the code, to preserve the rights of the author to economically exploit it, but applies for a limited time, after which the code itself is considered to be available under Apache License or MIT License. [13]

GitLab Enterprise Edition License (EE License)

The GitLab Enterprise Edition License is used exclusively by GitLab's commercial offering. [14] GitLab Inc. openly discloses that the EE License makes their Enterprise Edition product "proprietary, closed source code." [15] GitLab also releases an open-source Community Edition under the MIT License. [16] This makes GitLab an example of an open core company.

Mega Limited Code Review Licence

In 2016, Mega Ltd. released the source code of their Mega clients under the Mega Limited Code Review Licence, which only permits usage of the code "for the purposes of review and commentary". [17] The source code was released after former director Kim Dotcom stated that he would "create a Mega competitor that is completely open source and non-profit" following his departure from Mega Ltd. [18] [19]

Microsoft Shared Source Initiative

Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative, launched in May 2001, comprises 5 licenses, 2 of which are open-source and 3 of which are restricted. The restricted licenses under this scheme are the Microsoft Limited Public License (Ms-LPL), [20] the Microsoft Limited Reciprocal License (Ms-LRL), [21] and the Microsoft Reference Source License (Ms-RSL). [22]

Old Scilab License

Prior to version 5, Scilab described itself as "the open source platform for numerical computation" [23] but had a license [24] that forbade commercial redistribution of modified versions. Versions 5 and later are distributed under the GPL-compatible CeCILL license.

Server Side Public License

The Server Side Public License is a modification of the GNU Affero General Public License created by the MongoDB project. It modifies a clause relating to usage of the licensed work over a network, stating that if SSPL-licensed software is incorporated into a "service" offered to other users, the source code for the entirety of the service (including without limitation all software and APIs that would be required for a user to run an instance of the service themselves) must be released under the SSPL. [25] The license is considered non-free by the Open Source Initiative, Debian and Red Hat, as it contains conditions that are unduly discriminatory towards commercial use of the software. [26] [27]

SugarCRM Public License

In 2007 Michael Tiemann, president of OSI, had criticized [28] companies such as SugarCRM for promoting their software as "open source" when in fact it did not have an OSI-approved license. In SugarCRM's case, it was because the software is so-called "badgeware" [29] since it specified a "badge" that must be displayed in the user interface. SugarCRM's open source version was re-licensed under the GPL version 3 in 2007, [30] and later the GNU Affero GPL version 3 in 2010. [31]

TrueCrypt License

The TrueCrypt License was used by the TrueCrypt disk encryption utility. [32] When TrueCrypt was discontinued, the VeraCrypt fork switched to the Apache License, but retained the TrueCrypt License for code inherited from TrueCrypt. [33]

The Open Source Initiative rejects the TrueCrypt License, as "it has elements incompatible with the OSD." [34] The Free Software Foundation criticizes the license for restricting who can execute the program, and for enforcing a trademark condition. [35]

BeeGFS End User License Agreement

BeeGFS EULA is the license of the distributed parallel file system BeeGFS, except the client for Linux, which is licensed under GPLv2. [36]

BeeGFS source code is publicly available from their website, [37] and because of this they claiming BeeGFS as "Open-Source" software; [38] it is in fact not because this license prohibits distributing modified versions of the software, or using certain features of the software without authorization. [39]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Mozilla Public License (MPL) is a free and open-source weak copyleft license for most Mozilla Foundation software such as Firefox and Thunderbird. The MPL is developed and maintained by Mozilla, which seeks to balance the concerns of both open-source and proprietary developers. It is distinguished from others as a middle ground between the permissive software BSD-style licenses and the GNU General Public License. As such, it allows the integration of MPL-licensed code into proprietary codebases, as long as the MPL-licensed components remain accessible under the terms of the MPL.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GForge</span>

GForge is a commercial service originally based on the Alexandria software behind SourceForge, a web-based project management and collaboration system which was licensed under the GPL. Open source versions of the GForge code were released from 2002 to 2009, at which point the company behind GForge focused on their proprietary service offering which provides project hosting, version control, code reviews, ticketing, release management, continuous integration and messaging. The FusionForge project emerged in 2009 to pull together open-source development efforts from the variety of software forks which had sprung up.

Multi-licensing is the practice of distributing software under two or more different sets of terms and conditions. This may mean multiple different software licenses or sets of licenses. Prefixes may be used to indicate the number of licenses used, e.g. dual-licensed for software licensed under two different licenses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WTFPL</span> Permissive free software license

The WTFPL is a permissive free software license. 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 name is an abbreviation of Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public-domain-equivalent license</span> License that waives all copyright

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU Affero General Public License</span> Free software license based on the AGPLv1 and GPLv3

The GNU Affero General Public License is a free, copyleft license published by the Free Software Foundation in November 2007, and based on the GNU GPL version 3 and the Affero General Public License (non-GNU).

Software companies focusing on the development of open-source software (OSS) employ a variety of business models to solve the challenge of making profits from software that is under an open-source license. Each of these business strategies rest on the premise that users of open-source technologies are willing to purchase additional software features under proprietary licenses, or purchase other services or elements of value that complement the open-source software that is core to the business. This additional value can be, but not limited to, enterprise-grade features and up-time guarantees to satisfy business or compliance requirements, performance and efficiency gains by features not yet available in the open source version, legal protection, or professional support/training/consulting that are typical of proprietary software applications.

SplendidCRM produces open source Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software developed in C# for the ASP.NET framework. The product is available in two editions - Open Source and Professional - the main difference between the two products is the inclusion of stored procedures and source code for a MS Outlook 2003/2007 plug-in in the Professional edition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free-software license</span> License allowing software modification and redistribution

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU General Public License</span> Series of free software licenses

The GNU General Public Licenses are a series of widely used free software licenses, or copyleft licenses, that guarantee end users the freedoms to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first copyleft license available for general use. It was originally written by Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), for the GNU Project. The license grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the Free Software Definition. The licenses in the GPL series are all copyleft licenses, which means that any derivative work must be distributed under the same or equivalent license terms. It is more restrictive than the Lesser General Public License, and even further distinct from the more widely-used permissive software licenses such as BSD, MIT, and Apache.

Redis is a source-available, in-memory storage, used as a distributed, in-memory key–value database, cache and message broker, with optional durability. Because it holds all data in memory and because of its design, Redis offers low-latency reads and writes, making it particularly suitable for use cases that require a cache. Redis is the most popular NoSQL database, and one of the most popular databases overall. Companies that use Redis include Twitter, Airbnb, Tinder, Yahoo, Adobe, Hulu, Amazon and OpenAI.

The Shared Source Initiative (SSI) is a source-available software licensing scheme launched by Microsoft in May 2001. The program includes a spectrum of technologies and licenses, and most of its source code offerings are available for download after eligibility criteria are met.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open-core model</span> Business model monetizing commercial open-source software

The open-core model is a business model for the monetization of commercially produced open-source software. The open-core model primarily involves offering a "core" or feature-limited version of a software product as free and open-source software, while offering "commercial" versions or add-ons as proprietary software. The term was coined by Andrew Lampitt in 2008.

Briar is an open-source software communication technology, intended to provide secure and resilient peer-to-peer communications with no centralized servers and minimal reliance on external infrastructure. Messages can be transmitted through Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, over the internet via Tor or removable storage, such as USB sticks. All communication is end-to-end encrypted. Relevant content is stored in encrypted form on participating devices. Long-term plans for the project include support for distributed applications such as crisis mapping and collaborative document editing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VeraCrypt</span> Free and open-source disk encryption utility

VeraCrypt is a free and open-source utility for on-the-fly encryption (OTFE). The software can create a virtual encrypted disk that works just like a regular disk but within a file. It can also encrypt a partition or the entire storage device with pre-boot authentication.

Software relicensing is applied in open-source software development when software licenses of software modules are incompatible and are required to be compatible for a greater combined work. Licenses applied to software as copyrightable works, in source code as binary form, can contain contradictory clauses. These requirements can make it impossible to combine source code or content of several software works to create a new combined one.

Microsoft, a tech company historically known for its opposition to the open source software paradigm, turned to embrace the approach in the 2010s. From the 1970s through 2000s under CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft viewed the community creation and sharing of communal code, later to be known as free and open source software, as a threat to its business, and both executives spoke negatively against it. In the 2010s, as the industry turned towards cloud, embedded, and mobile computing—technologies powered by open source advances—CEO Satya Nadella led Microsoft towards open source adoption although Microsoft's traditional Windows business continued to grow throughout this period generating revenues of 26.8 billion in the third quarter of 2018, while Microsoft's Azure cloud revenues nearly doubled.

The Server Side Public License (SSPL) is a source-available copyleft software license introduced by MongoDB Inc. in 2018.

References

  1. 1 2 "DoD Open Source Software (OSS) FAQ: Is there a name for software whose source code is publicly available, but does not meet the definition of open source software?". Chief Information Officer. U.S. Department of Defense. Archived from the original on Jul 24, 2018. Retrieved 23 Jul 2018.
  2. ↑ Fortunato, Laura; Galassi, Mark (17 May 2021). "The case for free and open source software in research and scholarship". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A . 379 (2197). Bibcode:2021RSPTA.37900079F. doi: 10.1098/rsta.2020.0079 . PMID   33775148.
  3. ↑ "The Open Source Definition | Open Source Initiative". opensource.org.
  4. ↑ "Commons Clause License". Commons Clause License. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  5. ↑ Shoolman, Yiftach (5 July 2016). "Why Redis Labs' Modules are AGPL". Redis Labs. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  6. ↑ Claburn, Thomas. "Redis has a license to kill: Open-source database maker takes some code proprietary". The Register. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  7. ↑ "Commons Clause License". Commons Clause License. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  8. ↑ Asay, Matt. "Why Redis Labs made a huge mistake when it changed its open source licensing strategy". TechRepublic. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  9. ↑ The Commons Clause doesn't help the commons Matthew Garrett's blog
  10. ↑ "Delayed Open Source Publication". Open Source Initiative. Retrieved 25 Feb 2024.
  11. ↑ "Adopting and Developing BSL Software". MariaDB. Retrieved 25 Feb 2024.
  12. ↑ "Introducing the Functional Source License: Freedom without Free-riding". Sentry's blog. 17 November 2023. Retrieved 25 Feb 2024.
  13. ↑ "FSL - Functional Source License". Functional Source License. Retrieved 25 Feb 2024.
  14. ↑ "The GitLab Enterprise Edition (EE) license (the "EE License")". GitLab. GitLab Inc. 16 May 2018. Retrieved 23 Jul 2018.
  15. ↑ Sijbrandij, Sid (20 Jul 2016). "GitLab is open core, GitHub is closed source". GitLab. GitLab Inc. Retrieved 23 Jul 2018.
  16. ↑ "GitLab Community Edition LICENSE file". GitLab. GitLab Inc. 15 May 2018. Retrieved 23 Jul 2018.
  17. ↑ "meganz/MEGAsync". GitHub. 2017-09-07. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  18. ↑ "Interviews: Kim Dotcom Answers Your Questions - Slashdot". yro.slashdot.org. 2015-07-30. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  19. ↑ "Kim Dotcom promises to launch an open-source competitor to Mega (updated)". Engadget. 2015-07-31. Retrieved 2018-08-24.
  20. ↑ "Microsoft Limited Public License (Ms-LPL)". Microsoft .
  21. ↑ "Microsoft Limited Reciprocal License (Ms-LRL)". Microsoft .
  22. ↑ "Microsoft Reference Source License". Microsoft. 2016-07-06. Retrieved 2016-07-06. "Reference use" means use of the software within your company as a reference, in read-only form, for the sole purposes of debugging your products, maintaining your products, or enhancing the interoperability of your products with the software, and specifically excludes the right to distribute the software outside of your company.
  23. ↑ "The open source platform for numerical computation". INRIA . Retrieved 2008-01-04.
  24. ↑ "SCILAB License". INRIA. Archived from the original on 2005-12-12. Retrieved 2008-01-04.
  25. ↑ Staff, Ars (October 16, 2019). "In 2019, multiple open source companies changed course—is it the right move?". Ars Technica.
  26. ↑ Vaughan-Nichols, Steven J. "MongoDB "open-source" Server Side Public License rejected". ZDNet. Archived from the original on January 16, 2019. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  27. ↑ "MongoDB's licensing changes led Red Hat to drop the database from the latest version of its server OS". GeekWire. January 16, 2019. Archived from the original on January 17, 2019. Retrieved January 17, 2019.
  28. ↑ Tiemann, Michael (2007-06-21). "Will The Real Open Source CRM Please Stand Up?". Open Source Initiative . Retrieved 2008-01-04.
  29. ↑ Berlind, David (21 November 2006). "Are SugarCRM, Socialtext, Zimbra, Scalix and others abusing the term "open source?"". ZDNet. Archived from the original on 1 January 2008. Retrieved 4 January 2008.
  30. ↑ Vance, Ashlee (2007-07-25). "SugarCRM trades badgeware for GPL 3". The Register. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
  31. ↑ OSI Board of Directors (19 January 2021). "The SSPL is Not an Open Source License". Open Source Initiative . Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  32. ↑ "truecrypt-archive/License-v3.1.txt at master · DrWhax/truecrypt-archive". GitHub. 28 Mar 2014. Retrieved 23 Jul 2018.
  33. ↑ "root/License.txt". VeraCrypt. TrueCrypt Foundation. 17 Oct 2016. Retrieved 23 Jul 2018.
  34. ↑ Phipps, Simon (15 November 2013), TrueCrypt or false? Would-be open source project must clean up its act, InfoWorld , retrieved 20 May 2014
  35. ↑ "Various Licenses and Comments about Them". GNU Operating System. Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 23 Jul 2018.
  36. ↑ "BeeGFS End User License Agreement - Documentation - BeeGFS". BeeGFS. Retrieved 8 Jun 2020.
  37. ↑ "GitLab". BeeGFS. Retrieved 8 Jun 2020.
  38. ↑ "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)". BeeGFS Wiki. Retrieved 8 Jun 2020.
  39. ↑ "End-User License Agreement" (plain text). 2019-09-10. Retrieved 2021-01-26.
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