Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files the software, to deal in the. Lots of great free software is available under this license, with strong communities surrounding it. Pages in category software using the gpl license the following 150 pages are in this category, out of 150 total. The gnu general public license is often called the gnu gpl for short. Most gpl version 2 software is actually licensed as gpl version 2 or any later version, or. Learn about other free and open source software licenses at these sites. Marco fioretti answers a techrepublic members questions about charging fees for software thats made available under the gnu gpl license version 2 or 3.
Lawsuit threatens to break new ground on the gpl and. Supporting a strong copyleft, the gpl is probably the most protective free software license. There is a new license gpl affero that prohibits this. The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. Html, plain text, odf, docbook v4 or v5, texinfo, latex, markdown, and rtf. Work shall mean the work of authorship, whether in source or object form, made available under the license, as indicated by a notice that is included in or attached to the work an example is provided in the appendix below. Something it can be praised or criticized for depending your point of view. This product contains software licensed under gnu general public license gpl or gnu lesser general public license lgpl. It means that the source code of the application must be provided. Most distributed software can be categorized according to its license type see table. The correct way of expressing that the module is dual licensed under a gpl v2 variant or mit license choice. How to choose the best license for your open source software project getting the right license for your open source project can mean the difference between success and failure for your software. This post takes a look at the legal issues raised by both cases and what they mean for foss producers and users.
If your software includes gpl software, there is a strong likelihood that you are obligated by the terms of the gpl to license your code under the same gpl license. The software that i am refering to is qgis which provides this description. The distinct conceptual difference between the two is the granting of rights. Openfoam is distributed by the openfoam foundation and is freely available and open source, licensed under the gnu general public licence. Creative commons recommends and uses free and open source software licenses for software. If i bundle a piece of compiled software in this case, ffmpeg which is licensed under gpl 2, with my own commercial software which is not licensed under any form of open source license, does it affect the license that i have to apply to my software my understanding is that the gpl 2 licensed component does not affect my software if it is compiledbuilt it would affect it if i was.
Gpl licensed code cant be used for paid and proprietary software. The free software foundation urged developers to choose or any later version, since that meant users would be free to use that program under gnu gpl version 1, or under version 2 once there was a version 2, or under version 3 once there was a version 3. To use the free software foundations gnu general public license, see how to use gnu licenses for your own software. Frequently asked questions about the gnu licenses gnu. We normally use the gnu general public license gnu gpl, specifying version 3.
How to choose the best license for your open source. The creative commons attributionsharealike international license version 4. 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. A practical guide to gpl compliance software freedom law. Derivative works shall mean any work, whether in source or object form, that is based on or derived from. This software and related documentation are provided under a license agreement containing restrictions on use and disclosure and are.
Open source software projects and other developers can also use and distribute open source applications with the gpl licensed mysql client libraries under the terms of the foss license exception without causing the entire derivative work to be subject to the gpl. All packages produced by the asf are implicitly licensed under the apache license, version 2. There are two main elements to the gpl, designed to prevent open source software being exploited by their inclusion within nonfree, closed sourced software. Difference between different types of open sources licenses. Open source licenses are licenses that comply with the open source definition in brief, they allow software to be freely used, modified, and shared. I am writing software licensed under mit and including gpl. Gplv3version three of the gnu general public license is for most intents and purposes similar to gplv2. Wikimedia commons has media related to free software under the gpl. 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.
Qgis is an official project of the open source geospatial foundation osgeo. Gpl requires any other project or source that is using the project under gpl to also be licensed as gpl. I am creating a service where i will be selling and distributing client side software the client side software has absolutely no gpl code in it. If an application links to a library licensed under gpl, it must also be licensed under gpl. In gnu gpl it general public license requires that all its derivative works be licensed as a whole under the terms of the gpl. Prominent freesoftware programs licensed under the gpl include the linux kernel and the gnu compiler collection gcc. 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. License lgpl as published by the free software foundation.
Two common categories for software under law, and therefore with licenses which grant the licensee specific rights, are proprietary software and free and opensource software foss. 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. The core concept behind the gpl being any derivative work must be released under the gpl too. 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. Gpl license article about gpl license by the free dictionary. When an organization or a company is the sole owner of a software, or have a permission to do so from all owners, they may offer simultaneously the software under a free copyleft license such as gnu gpl and under a more permissive proprietary license. Windows in microsoft windows if you intend to use the gplc compiler as. The gnu general public license is available in these formats.
To make it free software, you need to release it under a free software license. But you can include mit licensed parts or another gpl compatible license in the project. The second version agplv2 was published in november 2007, as a transitional license to allow an upgrade path from. Dual bsd gpl the module is dual licensed under a gpl v2 variant or bsd license choice. Differences between gpl and lgpl when using licensed software. Historically, the gpl license family has been one of the most popular software licenses in the free and opensource software domain. Questions about the in a license should be directed to the license. A copy of that license is included in this document on page x. The first version of the affero general public license agplv1, was published by affero, inc. If software is licenced under a gpl license, can it be used without restriction in a corporatecommercial environment. The exact variant of the bsd license can only be determined via the license information in the corresponding source files. Gnu general public license, version 3 spdx short identifier.
Wikipedias content is mostly under the creative commons bysa license, which has similar sharealike features to the gpl. And they will be free to use it under version 4, if we ever have to make a version 4. Linux kernel licensing rules the linux kernel documentation. You may copy, distribute and modify the software as long as you track changesdates of in source files and keep modifications under gpl. The following 152 pages are in this category, out of 152 total. In addition to clarifying the rules about licenses that are already gpl compatible, gplv3 is also newly compatible with a few other licenses. The following licenses are sorted by the number of conditions, from most gnu agplv3 to. 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 gpl licensed, such as linux, wordpress, and wikipedias underlying software, mediawiki. You may obtain, copy, distribute and modify the source code for any portions of the product under gpl or lgpl. I understand the rules of the gpl stating that if i distribute any software using gpl code, then that code must be licensed under the gpl however, im wondering what the rules are in this case. If you publish code under a copyleft license such as the gpl and then accept external contributions under that license, you are no longer the sole owner and cannot include the gpl licensed contributions in the closed source version. The free software foundation urged developers to choose or any later version, since that meant users would be free to use that program under gnu gpl.
It handles patents differently, howeverthe gplv2 forbade redistribution under the. As the free software foundation states, dynamically linking application to libraries creates a single work derived from both the library code and the application code. The software included in this product contains ed software that is licensed under the gpl. Qgis is a user friendly open source geographic information system gis licensed under the gnu general public license. The affero general public license affero gpl and informally affero license is a free software license. To invoke the compiler use the gplc command as follows. Pages in category software using the gpl license wikipedia. The following licenses are in use for r or associated software such as packages. You can distribute your application using a gpl library commercially, but you must also provide the source code. Approximately 70% of free software packages are released under this license, including most gnu programs and thousands of others.
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