Feb 24, 2020 although software surveys performed by github and black duck software both list the mit license as the most commonly encountered open source license, we strongly recommend against its usage due to. Basically, it allows users to legally copy, distribute and modify software. According to aslett, in 2008 the gpl family was 70 percent of licenses. Apr 07, 2017 gnu lesser general public license it grants fewer right to work than gnu gpl. The gpl the gnu general public license the most popular copyleft licence.
If you have licensed software youve written under gpl version 2, and you are the original licensor of that software, you may wish to relicense your software under. The open source initiative, an organization founded in 1998 to promote open source software and normalize the use of the term, has approved more than 80 open source licenses. As we all know, the gnu general public license gpl is a copyleft source license. It grants the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, andor sell copies of the software as long as these and permission notices are included in every copy or version of the product. The licenses were originally written by richard stallman, former head of the free software foundation fsf, for the gnu project, and grant the recipients of a. How open source licenses affect your business and your. A quick guide to gplv3 gnu project free software foundation. Gpl is the acronym for gnus general public license, and its one of the most popular open source licenses. Obtaining source code some of the open source software licensors require the distributor to provide the source code with the executable software components.
The gnu general public license gnu gpl or gpl is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software. Gnu general public license this license, commonly known as the gpl, has two versions that are actively and widely used in many open source communities. Nov 02, 2016 the gnu general public license exists to protect the liberties of software creators and users alike. How open source licenses affect your business and your developers. Jun 15, 2012 copyleft or free software licensing helps ensure open standards and the continuity of the code. The open software license is a free software license. Reading black duck softwares newest paean to the affero general public license agpl the quietly accelerating adoption of the agpl, one could be. The gpl license grants the users irrevocable rights to use, modify and redistribute software even commercially under the condition that software or its derivatives retain the gpl license and that the source code is included or.
David chisnall compares the two most popular software licenses in the free and open source software foss communities. The following licenses are sorted by the number of conditions, from most gnu agplv3 to none unlicense. Lawsuit threatens to break new ground on the gpl and software. Top 10 gnu gpl license questions answered whitesource. The php license is a bsdstyle license which does not have the copyleft restrictions associated with gpl. A practical guide to gpl compliance software freedom law center. What are the most restrictive, businessunfriendly open. If you should know, there are several other open source licenses too, some of which claim to offer even more freedom than the gpl such as mozilla public license, bsd licence, apache 2. The gpl grants and guarantees a wide range of rights to developers who work on opensource projects. Gpl requires you to release the source code of your application if you choose to use and distribute the gpl licensed open source software with your application. The gpl builds on the traditional open source license by requiring the release of source code of any piece of software that is built on another piece of open source software. As a result, developers who use or distribute open source applications under the gpl can use the gpllicensed mysql software, and oems, isvs and vars that do not want to combine or distribute the mysql software with their own commercial software under a gpl license can purchase a commercial license.
What is the difference between open source licenses mit, cc0. Jun 21, 2016 some of the mostinstalled open source software is gpllicensed, such as linux, wordpress, and wikipedias underlying software, mediawiki. Why should i use the gnu gpl rather than other free software licenses. Sep 05, 2017 reading black duck softwares newest paean to the affero general public license agpl the quietly accelerating adoption of the agpl, one could be forgiven for thinking agpl is rocking the.
Some modules we make are using more permissive licenses, though, for example, the blender cycles rendering engine is available as apache 2. Copyleft or free software licensing helps ensure open standards and the continuity of the code. However, the usage of the gpl as a percent of all open source projects is in decline. Various licenses and comments about them gnu project free. Software licenses, open source components, and open. How can gpl terms apply to distribution of a proprietary. Lookup popular software licenses summarized ataglance.
In other words, your application must also be licensed under the gpl. In accordance with the software freedom law centers sflcs philosophy of assisting the community with gpl compliance cooperatively, this guide focuses on avoiding compliance actions and minimizing the negative impact when enforcement. Developers that use the gnu gpl protect your rights with two steps. It depends on what you mean by businessunfriendly and restrictive though. The gnu gplv3 also lets people do almost anything they want with your project, except distributing. It seems to me that the chief difference between the mit license and gpl is that the mit doesnt require modifications be open sourced whereas the. The key innovation of the gpl license was the requirement that source code be provided along with any binary code distributed, ensuring that the. Aug 26, 2008 this is a guide to effective compliance with the gnu general public license gpl and related licenses. These include software components covered by a gnu general public license hereafter gpl, a gnu lesser general public license hereafter lgpl or other license agreement. The offer must be open to everyone who has a copy of the binary that it accompanies. The gpl is considered the standard open source software licence, and many nonsoftware works are published under the gpl as well. If you have licensed software youve written under gpl version 2, and you are the original licensor of that software, you may wish to relicense your software under gpl version 3. Gnu general public license version 2 open source initiative. This general public license applies to most of the free software foundations software and to any other program whose.
Gpl and lgpl open source licensing restrictions stack overflow. I can include mitlicensed code in a gpl licensed product, but can i include gpl licensed code in a mitlicensed product. Gpl is provided through the free software foundation, a nonprofit corporation that works to provide free software for the gnu project. This is an open source license, certified by the open source initiative. The open software license osl is a software license created by lawrence rosen. The android open source project aosp uses a few open source initiative approved open source licenses for our software. A short guide to open source licenses smashing magazine. The gnu general public license gpl is a free, copyleft license used primarily for software. Recent versions of the open software license have a term which requires distributors to try to obtain explicit assent to the license. It lets people do almost anything they want with your project, like making and distributing closed source versions. Frequently asked questions about the gnu licenses gnu project. Short for general public license, the license that accompanies some open source software that details how the software and its accompany source code can be freely copied, distributed and modified.
The original affero gpl was designed to ensure that all users of a web application would be able to receive its source. Wikipedias content is mostly under the creative commons bysa license, which has similar sharealike features to the gpl. The gnu gpl license therefore requires that such scripts if published are being shared under a gpl compatible license. The open source initiative osi has certified it as an open source license, but the debian project judged version 1.
Historically, the gpl license family has been one of the most popular software licenses in the free and opensource. By contrast, the gnu general public license is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a programto make sure it remains free software for all its users. It is incompatible with the gnu gpl in several ways. Dont believe the hype, agpl open source licensing is. Each has advantages, but the distinctions are sometimes quite subtle. In practice, its often much easier and safer to keep a bright line between the gpl software and the proprietary software, e. The majority of all open source projects are licensed under gpl version 2. Gnu general public license, version 3 spdx short identifier. How to choose the best license for your open source software. This post takes a look at the legal issues raised by both cases and what they mean for foss producers and users.
Tldrlegal software licenses explained in plain english. Difference between different types of open sources licenses. The most widespread use of gpl is in reference to the gnu gpl, which is commonly abbreviated simply as gpl when it is understood that the term refers. Although software surveys performed by github and black duck software both list the mit license as the most commonly encountered open source license, we. Explaining and understanding the gnu general public license. Today, the gpl license that stallman pioneered is in its third version gnu gplv3 and is only one of several dozen types of open source. The gnu gpl allows users to change and share all versions of a program.
Infecting means derived program violate gpl, infected means gpl program violate its own license. Sharing or selling blender addons python scripts blender s python api is an integral part of the software, used to define the user interface or develop tools for example. Whats the difference between copyleft and permissive. Mit license is one of the least restrictive open source licenses out there. Use of the manual is a subject to the following terms. I can include mitlicensed code in a gpllicensed product, but can i include gpllicensed code in a mitlicensed product. Understanding opensource and free software licensing medium. The gpl is the free software foundations general public licence. Although there is an enormous amount of various licenses on the market, we will cover only a few most popular. Its generally appropriate for libraries and projects that want to allow linking from nongpl and nonopensource. Gnu general public license, version 2 spdx short identifier. Court of appeals for the seventh circuit found in november 2006 that the gnu general public license gpl and opensource software have nothing to fear from the antitrust laws. The gnu general public licence gpl is probably one of the most commonly used licenses for opensource projects. It is used to distribute a number of important open source software projects, including the linux kernel.
The answer is that while a strong copyleft license such as the gpl uses these distribution terms, a weak copyleft license such as the gnu lesser general public license lgpl uses. Here are the top open source licenses and their risk categories. Version 2 of the gnu general public license gpl is probably the most commonly used open source software license. If you have licensed software youve written under gpl version 2, and you are the original licensor of that software, you may. Dont believe the hype, agpl open source licensing is toxic. Gpl program is infecting and infected the parent and the child non gpl process proprietary and even other open source license from the perspective of law. Should you use a gnu gpl or mit open source license. Php 4, php 5 and php 7 are distributed under the php license v3.
Today, the gpl license that stallman pioneered is in its third version and is only one of several dozen types of open source licenses. When versata software sued ameriprise financial services for breaching its software license, it unwittingly unearthed a gpl violation of its own and touched off another lawsuit that could prove to be a leading case on free and open source software licensing. Some of the mostinstalled open source software is gpllicensed, such as linux, wordpress, and wikipedias underlying software, mediawiki. What are the major types of open source software licenses. The gnu public license, also known as the gpl, is what most people mean when they refer to an open source license. Open source licenses grant permission for anybody to use, modify, and share licensed software for any purpose, subject to conditions preserving the provenance and openness of the software. Zabbix is free and open source software, however, if you use zabbix in a commercial context we kindly ask you to support development of zabbix by purchasing some level of commercial support.
The nature of free open source software licenses can be understood by considering the two extremes of the field, the generally believed to be maximally restrictive gpl license and the near public domain bsd license, which differ mainly in their treatment of source code compared with binary code. Licence zabbix the enterpriseclass open source network. Aug 15, 2015 version 2 of the gnu general public license gpl is probably the most commonly used open source software license. The gnu general public license gnu gpl or simply gpl is a widely used open source software license, originally written by richard stallman for the gnu project. Panasonic allegedly refused to distribute the source code for its operating system, and by doing this, blocked its competitors including cokinetic from having the. A practical guide to gpl compliance software freedom law. This license, commonly known as the gpl, has two versions that are actively and widely used in many open source communities. The osl is a copyleft license, with a termination clause triggered by filing a lawsuit alleging patent infringement.
Is it legal to use gpl code in a proprietary, closed. The gnu affero gpl version 3 has also been brought into the fold. The purpose of this license is to ensure that a work can be freely distributed and modified by anybody, and that no proprietary works can be derived. While the project strives to adhere to the preferred license, there are.