The IBM Public License (IPL) is a free

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose. Op ...

license written and occasionally used by IBM. It is approved by the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)#501(c)(3), 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

(FSF) and described as an "open-source license" by the

Open Source Initiative The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the steward of the Open Source Definition, the set of rules that define open source software. It is a California public-benefit nonprofit corporation,_with_501(c)(3).html" ;"title="110. - 6910./ref> is a type o ...

. The IPL differs from the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

(GPL), in that it places the liability on the ''publisher'' or ''distributor'' of the licensed software code. The reason behind this is to facilitate the commercial use of open-source software, without placing the contributor at risk of liability. Proponents of the IPL note a clearer definition of responsibility for software code than that of the GPL. The IPL is incompatible with the GPL because it contains restrictions not included in the GPL, specifically a

choice of law Choice of law is a procedural stage in the litigation of a case involving the conflict of laws when it is necessary to reconcile the differences between the laws of different legal jurisdictions, such as sovereign states, federated states (as in t ...

clause stating the license is to be interpreted under the laws of the State of New York and

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

intellectual property law. According to the FSF, "This is a free software license. Unfortunately, it has a choice of law clause which makes it incompatible with the GNU GPL." The IPL differs from the GPL in the handling of

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

, as IPL ''terminates'' the license upon patent disputes. Examples of software projects licensed under the IPL include Postfix,

OpenAFS OpenAFS is an open-source implementation of the Andrew distributed file system (AFS). AFS was originally developed at Carnegie Mellon University, and developed as a commercial product by the Transarc Corporation, which was subsequently acquired b ...

, and the now-unmaintained

Jikes Jikes is an open-source Java compiler written in C++. It is no longer being updated. The original version was developed by David L. "Dave" Shields and Philippe Charles at IBM but was quickly transformed into an open-source project contributed ...

compiler for

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

References

External links

IBM Public License Version 1.0.
Free and open-source software licenses Copyleft software licenses Public License {{free-software-stub

See also

References

External links