«

DRX

Web Developer Resource Index: Licenses

An Open Source License defines the copyright restrictions, if any, placed on and distributed with software that falls into this category. The de facto standard for software to be considered open-source is the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Open Source Definition.

In general, this means that the software is distributed with source code, that the user is free to read and modify the software, and may redistribute it under the same conditions that they received it. Some open-source software is packaged and sold commercially, such as various distributions of Linux, though normally these packages are sold with added value and always with the source code included.

There are many licenses and the degree of freedom allowed with them are highly variant. The BSD license (basically equivalent to the MIT license) is considered liberal, requiring only that the user keeps the copyright notice intact, while the GNU GPL license is more complex and considered more restrictive. Many of the differences are philosophical in nature only.

The history of the open source/free software movement can be traced to the beginnings of Unix and the Internet, when universities released their work so that other researchers and developers could benefit from new advancements.

Updated: Tuesday, February 14th, 2006 @ 10:35 PM EST [56]

Visit Category: Treeview of the Index  Accessibility  Apache  Browsers  C  CGI  CSS  Character Encoding  Clients  Data Formats  Databases  Design and Development  Developer Resources  Directories  Dublin Core  FOAF  Firefox  FreeBSD  GeoURL  HTML  HTTP  History  Innovators  Internet  JavaScript  Languages  Licenses  Linux  Mac OS X  Markup Languages  Media Types  Metadata  MySQL  OPML  OWL  Open Source  Opera  Operating Systems  PHP  PICS  Perl  PostgreSQL  Programming  Protocols  Python  RDF  RSS  Safari  Semantic Web  Servers  Site Promotion  Software  Standards  Style Sheets  URI  Unix  WWW  Web Developer News  XHTML  XMDP  XML  XML Languages  XPath  XPointer  XQuery  XSL  XSL-FO  XSLT

Navigation

Resources

• 1.Stromian Technologies: Open Source Software Licensing

  Some very interesting articles on free software licensing: history, forms, and problems, seen from a commercial view. Links to some license texts and important Open Source sites. [122]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://stromian.com/Open_Source_Licensing.htm
  Author:
  Donald Rosenberg
  [1]
  Reviewed:Thursday, April 7th, 2005 @ 11:50 PM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  Stromian Technologies: Open Source Software Licensing licensesopen sourcesoftware
   

• 2.Open Source License Quick Reference Chart

  This is the interactive version, by Peter Lowe, of Zooko's classic document designed to help developers choose a license based on the distribution plans they have for the open-source project they are working on. Very handy, bookmark this one. [1644]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://pgl.yoyo.org/lqr/
  Author:
  Bryce Wilcox-O'Hearn
  [1]
  Reviewed:Tuesday, February 14th, 2006 @ 10:35 PM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  Open Source License Quick Reference Chart licensesopen sourcereferencesoftware
   

• 3.There's No Such Thing as a Free (Software) Lunch

  What every developer should know about software licensing. As legal advisor to his company, Wasabi (a developer of embedded NetBSD systems), Jay admits he's a bit biased. However, it is well known that the GNU GPL license terms are more restrictive. [1517]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://acmqueue.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=...
  Author:
  Jay Michaelson
  [1]
  Reviewed:Saturday, August 27th, 2005 @ 9:15 AM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  There's No Such Thing as a Free (Software) Lunch bsdgnulicensesopen sourcesoftware
   

• 4.mozCC

  A Mozilla Firefox extension that searches Web pages for embedded Creative Commons licenses. Once detected, it parses the referenced RDF file, displays licensing parameters as icons in the status bar and allows access to a detailed dialog window view. [1269]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://yergler.net/projects/mozcc/
  Author:
  Nathan Yergler
  [1]
  Reviewed:Sunday, June 5th, 2005 @ 8:20 PM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  mozCC creative commonsextensionfirefoxlicensesmozillardf
   

• 5.Open Source License Law Resource Center

  Dennis is a lawyer, who also happens to have a background in technology and software. Here you'll find a large collection of resources to help you understand the issues of open-source licensing, and your products that incorporates such software. [1215]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://denniskennedy.com/resources/technology-law-central/opensourcel...
  Author:
  Dennis Kennedy
  [1]
  Reviewed:Saturday, May 21st, 2005 @ 4:17 PM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  Open Source License Law Resource Center licensesopen sourcesoftware
   

• 6.Yahoo: Creative Commons Search

  Now you can search for content, source code, music, whatever, that's under a CC license. Like the stuff on this site. [1109]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://search.yahoo.com/cc
  Author:
  Yahoo! Inc.
  [4]
  Reviewed:Saturday, May 7th, 2005 @ 2:08 PM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  Yahoo: Creative Commons Search creative commonslicensessearchyahoo
   

• 7.Philosophy of the GNU Project

  A series of essays describing the philosophy of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), and the motivation for the development of the free software operating system GNU. [180]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
  Author:
  Richard Stallman
  [1]
  Reviewed:Sunday, April 10th, 2005 @ 10:15 PM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  Philosophy of the GNU Project fsfgnulicensessoftware
   

• 8.Navigating Open Source Licensing

  The process for choosing a license, reviewing code and launching a product without liability concerns becomes more vexing as the Open Source atmosphere expands. [129]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://www.sitepoint.com/article/open-source-licensing
  Author:
  Blane Warrene
  [2]
  Reviewed:Friday, April 8th, 2005 @ 2:23 AM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  Navigating Open Source Licensing licensesopen sourcesoftware
   

• 9.Why OSS/FS? Look at the Numbers!

  The goal of this paper is to convince you to consider using OSS/FS when you're looking for software, using quantitive measures. [128]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
  Author:
  David A. Wheeler
  [2]
  Reviewed:Friday, April 8th, 2005 @ 2:06 AM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  Why OSS/FS? Look at the Numbers! licensesopen sourcesoftware
   

• 10.Public Knowledge

  Public Knowledge is a group of lawyers, technologists, lobbyists, academics, volunteers and activists dedicated to fortifying and defending a vibrant information commons. [126]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://www.publicknowledge.org/
  Author:
  Staff
  [1]
  Reviewed:Friday, April 8th, 2005 @ 12:57 AM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  Public Knowledge licenses
   

• 11.Creative Commons

  The goal of Creative Commons' current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules. [123]

  ★★★★☆
  URI:http://creativecommons.org/
  Author:
  Staff and Advisors
  [1]
  Reviewed:Friday, April 8th, 2005 @ 12:05 AM EST
  by:
  Douglas Clifton
  
  Creative Commons creative commonslicenses
   

Related Categories

Matching Tags

bsd creative commons extension firefox fsf gnu licenses mozilla open source rdf reference search software yahoo

Indexes

Search for Open Source Licenses on:

drx Search:

Last updated: Tuesday, February 14th, 2006 @ 10:35 PM EST [2006-02-15T03:35:14Z]