What is my open source software license?
?Rules and permissions defined in the most commonly used open source software licenses.
This table is designed to help you choose a license for your software or find out what you have the right to do with third-party source code. It does not exempt from carefully reading the chosen license to learn all its terms, as this comparison is limited to critical rules. Some of them contain provisions concerning patents that are useful for distribution to states.
| LPG 2 | LPG 3 | PUT | BSD | CDDL | MPL 2.0 | Apache 2.0 | LGPL 3 | EPL | APSL | Affero | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Origin | FSF | FSF | PUT | UC | Sun | Mozilla | Apache | FSF | Eclipse | Apple | FSF |
| Product example | Red Hat | Wayland | FreeBSD | NetBeans | Firefox | Apache | CPF + | Eclipse | Darwin | MongoDB | |
| Rules | |||||||||||
| Author name in sources | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |
| Author's name in binaries | x | x | x | x | x | ||||||
| Re-use allowed | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | |
| Free distribution by and for each | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |
| The ability to fork | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |
| May be included in commercial product | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | |||
| GPL 3 support | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | ||||
| Possibility of subsequent license change | x | x | |||||||||
| We must publish the modified source | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x |
- Affero: Affero General Public License или Affero GPL. The peculiarity of this license is that all derivatives and added works must be under the same license .
- Apache: Apache License. Apache 2.0 is compatible with GPL 3.0, not previous versions, and Apache 1 is not compatible with GPL 3. Apache 2.0 does not require third-party code changes to be made public, unlike GPL or LGPL .
- APSL: Public Apple Source License.
- BSD: Bekerley Software Distribution. By University of California .
- CDDL: General License for development and distribution.
- CPL: General public attribution.
- EPL: Eclipse Public License. Eclipse Foundation.
- FSF: Free Software Foundation .
- GPL 2: GNU Public License Version 3 .
- GPL 3: GNU Public License, version 3. This version is compatible with Apache and Affero .
- MIT.
- MPL: Mozilla Public License .
Some details...
Ability to create fork: Create a derived version of the software and publish it under a different name. Under the GPL, fork must retain the same license, author names must be retained, and changes must remain open.
Compatible with GPL 3. Code with licensed GPL code can be used under this license. The license may be compatible with the GPL 3 license rather than GPL 2. In practice, if the code is included in one of the two GPL licenses, then the set becomes the GPL .
A subsequent license change is possible. This applies only to the license code in question, and not to the deputy one. Some licenses allow you to complete the license with a new version of the code, others do not.
We need to publish the changed source. In the case of software distribution in binary form, after changing the license source, this changed source must be published, even if it was created by a separate channel, but is available to the same users. Therefore, this does not apply to personal use.
Other terms...
It is possible to distribute software under a dual license, such as a GPL and a commercial license for professionals. Different licenses apply to different categories of users.
Lawyers' opinion on licenses...
- AGPL 3.0: Avoid, block reusability.
- Apache 2.0: The most permissive, well-written, defines patent rights (in the US).
- Artistic 2.0: Mainly concerns Perl misspelled legally.
- BSD 2: Permissive but ambiguous. Don't say anything about patents.
- BSD 3: Like 2 .
- Common Creative 1.0: Copyright only .
- EPL. Concerning Eclipse. Clearly written, applies to copyright (which she leaves free) and patents.
- GPL 2.0 - Linux licensing. Frees from copyright. Hard to interpret. Incompatible with other licenses.
- GPL 3.0: Harder than both
- LGPL 2: Simplifies the use of libraries, but is difficult to interpret legally.
- LGPL 3: Harder than both .
- MIT: Permissive, ambiguous, does not explicitly cover patents .
- MPL 2.0 (Mozilla): Clearly releases copyright .
In all cases, a copy of the license must be included with the source code, and sometimes with the software in executable form.