Compare the best free open source bsd software at sourceforge. Most of my professional life i have had to read about open source licenses. The gpl is by far the best software license for endusers of the code. These licenses help us achieve our goal of providing reliable and longlived software products through collaborative open source software development. A 72% market share for the leading permissive licenses, at least among github users. It also contains a patent license and retaliation clause which is designed to prevent patents including patent trolls from encumbering the software project. Sidebyside comparison of gnu general public license, version 3 vs. Copyleft licenses like gpl are, generally speaking, bad for business. The apache software foundation and the free software foundation agree that the apache license 2. The long and short of itif you use open source software within your software development project, any permissive license should be fine. The bsd 2clause license the following is a bsd 2clause license template. Products derived from this software may not be called apache, nor may apache appear in their name, without prior written permission of the apache software foundation.
To generate your own license, change the values of owner, organization and year from their original values as given here, and substitute your own. Mit license and apache license only requires that you give credit to original holders. In mit license, the word software with a capital s is explicitly defined as being this software and associated documentation files. Gnu lesser general public license, version 3 spot the differences due to the helpful visualizations at a glance category. To apply the apache license to your work, attach the following boilerplate notice, with the fields enclosed by brackets replaced with your own identifying. The bsd license family is one of the oldest and broadly used license family in the foss ecosystem. Xml commons contains some software and documentation that is covered under a number of different licenses. I read somewhere that gpl or lgpl enforces that software that uses gpl software must also be released opensource. The apache software foundation uses various licenses to distribute software and documentation, to accept regular contributions from individuals and corporations, and to accept larger grants of existing software products. Asl allows projects and software to be freely downloaded and used, may it be in whole or in part, for personal, company or commercial purposes and without concern for. The default license throughout the repository is apache license. This is not how i perceive the world or software and hardware playing out.
Bsd license is a part of a family of free software licenses that have much fewer restrictions in distribution as compared to other free software licenses. This license has been superseded by the apache license, version 2. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have sharealike requirements. The build produces two sets of binaries one set that falls under the elastic. 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. Add bsd2clause to your projects package description, if applicable e. Various licenses and comments about them gnu project. The apache software license asl is a license scheme for free and opensource computer software foss written by the apache software foundation asf. Free, secure and fast bsd software downloads from the largest open source applications and software directory. The apache software license was based in large part on bsd and mit style licenses. Both the mit license and the bsd 2clause license are considered. The full license text can also be accessed via the web from the apache licenses page.
Bsdlicense spot the differences due to the helpful visualizations at a glance category. The original bsd license was used for its namesake, the berkeley software distribution bsd, a unixlike operating system. Gpl is a copyleft license so it requires derivative works to be released under the same license and programs linked with a library released under the gpl must also be released under the gpl. It is essentially identical to the x11 license, with an optional alternative way of providing license notices. It can also be read as a bsd versus gpl open source license introduction and summary. What are the essential differences between the bsd and mit licences. Redistributions of source code must retain the above notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Do you have the right to take apache licensed code and relicense it as bsd. All packages produced by the asf are implicitly licensed under the apache license, version 2. For the purposes of being included in an apache software foundation product, licenses andor. The text should be enclosed in the appropriate comment syntax for the file format. Also, many new licenses were derived or inspired by the bsd licenses. The common understanding while i was working on apache code a while back was that you could incorporate bsd, mit, and similar licensed libraries but you could not do the same for gpl based licenses. Bsd licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the use and distribution of covered software. The gnu gpl general public license covers over 50% of the free software projects including the linux kernel, busybox and many applications. To apply the apache license to your work, attach the following boilerplate notice, with the fields enclosed by brackets replaced with your own identifying information.
Many foss software projects use a bsd license, for instance the bsd os family freebsd etc. For more information on the apache software foundation, please see. The apache license is a permissive free software license written by the apache software foundation asf. See the license for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the license. According to the wikipedia article apache license, the free software foundation considers all versions of the apache license as of 2007 to be incompatible with the previous gpl versions 1. This document makes a case for using a bsd style license for software and data. Media in category free software under the apache license the following 12 files are in this category, out of 12 total. Apache software license 1 apple public source license 2 artistic license 1 bsd license 56 gnu general public license version 2. Any chance you could change the license to apache or mit. In the bsd licenses, they talk about source code and binary form, no mention of documentation. The apache license has some extra benefits over the bsd or mit x11 licensestyle licenses.
What you need to know to choose an open source license. This final consideration may often be the dominant one, as it was when the apache project decided upon. This will ensure the license is displayed in package directories. Why you should use a bsd style license for your open. Previous versions of the sgi free software license b were not free software licenses, despite their name. Portions of this software are based upon public domain software originally written at the national center for supercomputing applications, university of illinois, urbanachampaign. Permission to use, copy, modify, andor distribute this software for any purpose.
To inspect the license terms please consult the license and notice files in the root directory of the distribution. 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 computer program the rights of the. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met. Gpl and lgpl open source licensing restrictions closed ask question. Tldrlegal provides generally good summaries of licenses. Like apache license v2 and unlike mit and bsd2clause. What are the essential differences between the bsd and mit. 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. Bsd license example license for template files apache. Difference between different types of open sources licenses. They require all modifications, and any software based on the open source. Nonsoftware enterprises like banks or states and folk.
Apache gives away all rights to the software and code, provided they include the apache license text in all their distributions. If the library you link against is lesser gnu public license aka lgpl then you dont need to release your own applications code but you are still. All software produced by the apache software foundation or any of its projects or subjects is licensed according to the terms of the documents listed below. Apache is decent model when you have expertise and money, but do not have significant market share yet. Contribute to ymotongpoovsc licenser development by creating an account on github. The short answer is that if you use open source software in your project, you must satisfy all the requirements laid out in that. I have researched a bit about this topic and what i found out is that the part for compiled software in the bsd license is unnecessary. The apache license says do whatever you want with this, just dont sue me but does so with many more words, which lawyers like because it adds specificity. Gpl and lgpl open source licensing restrictions stack. Bsd 2clause license freebsdsimplified explained in. Unless otherwise noted all files in xml commons are covered under the apache license version 2.
Open source licenses and licenses in general can be seen as a way of dealing with. Can i close source of forked version of apache licensed software. Apache fop comes with a number of libraries all of which are currently coming from within the apache software foundation. You can charge someone for the software, but remember to give them a copy of gnu gpl which would tell them.
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