open source license
An
open source license is a copyright
license for
computer software that makes the source code available under terms that allow for modification and redistribution without having to pay the original author. Such licenses may have additional restrictions such as a requirement to preserve the name of the authors and the copyright statement within the code. One popular (and sometimes considered normative) set of
open source software licenses are those approved by the
Open Source Initiative (OSI) based on their
Open Source Definition (OSD).
Comparisons
The
Free Software Foundation has related but distinct criteria for evaluating whether or not a license qualifies a program as
free software. All licenses qualified as free software are also considered open source licenses. Likewise, the
Debian project has its own criteria, the
Debian Free Software Guidelines, on which the Open Source Definition is based.There are also
shared source licenses which have some similarities with open source, such as the
Microsoft Reference License (MS-RL), but are not compatible with the Open Source Definition.
OSI approved licenses
Image:Opensource.svg|thumb|right|
OSI logo]]Software in the
public domain (that is, with all copyright renounced), meets those criteria as long as all source code is made available, and is therefore recognized by the OSI and entitled to use their
service mark. In addition, OSI has approved the following licenses {{As of|2007|lc=on}}:The categories were created by a
license proliferation committee in 2006 to lessen or remove issues caused by license proliferation
(1).
Licenses that are popular and widely used or with strong communities (11)
Special purpose licenses (3)
Other/Miscellaneous licenses (7)
Licenses that are redundant with more popular licenses (8)
Non-reusable licenses (25)
Superseded licenses (4)
Licenses that have been voluntarily retired (4)
Not categorized
Non-OSI source licenses
Licenses that are source-available but not OSI-Certified include:
See also
References
-
[Report of License Proliferation Committee and draft FAQ]
External links
Wikibooks
- b:FOSS Localization|Free/Open Source Softw
Open-Source-LizenzLicencia Open SourceLicenza open sourceNyílt forráskódú licencЛицензии открытого ПОสัญญาอนุญาตโอเพนซอร์ซ
(...as imported from WP)
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