open source software licenses (for humans)

OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE LICENSES

{{ for humans }}Shijie Feng Hack13right

2-12-2016

WHAT IS Computer Program: source code

Development Model: peer production

Value System: freedom + community

FREE SOFTWARE MOVEMENT

Richard StallmanGNU Project

GPL License

Free Software Foundation

Linus TorvaldsLinux Kernel

(kernel for GNU, Android, Chrome)

Released under GPLv2

"Linus Torvalds’s style of development – release early and often, delegate everything you can, be open to the point of promiscuity – came as a surprise. No quiet, reverent cathedral-building here – rather, the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches (aptly symbolized by the Linux archive sites, who’d take submissions from anyone) out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles."

-- Eric Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar

FREE SOFTWARE v. OPEN SOURCE4 Freedomsfreedom to run

software, to study and change it, and to redistribute copies with or without changes

Free speech, not free beer

Rebranding1998: adopted name

“open source” at a strategy session in Palo Alto, after Netscape announced its release of source code

Types of Open Source Licenses

PermissiveIt lets people do anything they want with your code as long as they provide attribution back to you and don’t hold you liable.

eg. Python, jQuery, Rails, Swift, and Android

Strongly ProtectiveIt requires anyone who distributes your code or a derivative work to make the source available under the same terms.

eg. WordPress, Linux, Bash

Weakly ProtectiveIt allows integration into proprietary software without being required to release the source code of their own components.

Permissive Licenses{{ I’m friends with everyone <3 }}

Permissive LicenseMIT License (most popular)

Permissive LicenseMIT License (most popular)

“Do whatever you want! Just don’t sue me.”

BSD 3-Clause License

BSD 3-Clause License Example:

Permissive LicenseMIT License (most popular)

“Do whatever you want! Just don’t sue me.”

BSD 3-Clause License

MIT + “Don’t use my name in promotion without asking me.”

Permissive LicenseMIT License (most popular)

“Do whatever you want! Just don’t sue me.”

BSD 3-Clause License

MIT + “Don’t use my name in promotion without asking me.”

Apache 2.0

Apache 2.0 Patent Clause:

Permissive LicenseMIT License (most popular)

“Do whatever you want! Just don’t sue me.”

BSD 3-Clause License

MIT + “Don’t use my name in promotion without asking me.”

Apache 2.0

“I hereby grant you the patent rights.”

Strongly Protective Licenses

{{ I love you as long as you’re not selfish }}

Strongly Protective License

GPLv2, GPLv3

GPLv2 Excerpt:

Strongly ProtectiveGPLv2, GPLv3

share and share alikeCopyleft

Copyleft is a method for making a program free software and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free software as well.

Impose redistribution requirements on downstream versions

WHY COPYLEFT?

“[I]nstead of putting GNU software in the public domain, we ‘copyleft’ it. Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. Copyleft guarantees that every user has freedom.”

Questions?=^.^=Resources:

-Open Source Initiative-GNU.org Licenses-Ask your friendly

lawyer =]