open-source licence
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An open-source license is a type of
license A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...
for computer software and other products that allows the source code, blueprint or design to be used, modified and/or shared under defined terms and conditions. This allows end users and commercial companies to review and modify the source code, blueprint or design for their own customization, curiosity or troubleshooting needs. Open-source licensed software is mostly available
free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...
of charge, though this does not necessarily have to be the case. Licenses which only permit non-commercial redistribution or modification of the source code for personal use only are generally not considered as open-source licenses. However, open-source licenses may have some restrictions, particularly regarding the expression of respect to the origin of software, such as a requirement to preserve the name of the authors and a copyright statement within the code, or a requirement to redistribute the licensed software only under the same license (as in a copyleft license). There have been debates about whether open source licenses, which permit copyholders to use, transfer and modify software, have adequate
consideration Consideration is a concept of English common law and is a necessity for simple contracts but not for special contracts (contracts by deed). The concept has been adopted by other common law jurisdictions. The court in ''Currie v Misa'' declared ...
to be viewed by the courts as legally enforceable contracts. While some academics have argued that open source licenses are not contracts because there is no consideration, others have argued that the significant societal value provided by the role that open source licenses play in promoting software development and improvement by facilitating access to source code offers adequate consideration. One popular set of open-source software licenses are those approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) based on their Open Source Definition (OSD). Open source licenses dictate the terms and conditions that come with the use of open source software (OSS). Open source licenses serve as a legal agreement between open source author and user: authors make OSS available for free, but with certain requirements the user must follow. Generally, open source license terms kick in upon distribution of your software — if you only use an open source component for an internal tool, for example, you probably won't be bound by requirements that would otherwise apply.


Comparisons

The Free Software Foundation has related but distinct criteria for evaluating whether or not a license qualifies software as free software. Most free software licenses are also considered open-source software licenses. In the same way, the
Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of D ...
project has its own criteria, the Debian Free Software Guidelines, on which the Open Source Definition is based. In the interpretation of the FSF, open-source license criteria focus on the availability of the ''source code'' and the ability to modify and share it, while free software licenses focuses on the user's freedom to use the ''program'', to modify it, and to share it. Source-available licenses ensure source code availability, but do not necessarily meet the user freedom criteria to be classified as free software or open-source software.


Public domain

Around 2004, lawyer Lawrence Rosen argued in the essay ''"Why the public domain isn't a license"'' that software could not truly be waived into the public domain and can't therefore be interpreted as very permissive open-source license, a position which faced opposition by
Daniel J. Bernstein Daniel Julius Bernstein (sometimes known as djb; born October 29, 1971) is an American German mathematician, cryptologist, and computer scientist. He is a visiting professor at CASA at Ruhr University Bochum, as well as a research professor of ...
and others. In 2012, the dispute was finally resolved when Rosen accepted the CC0 as an open-source license, while admitting that contrary to his previous claims, copyright can be waived away, backed by
Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts: * District o ...
decisions.


See also


References


External links


The Open Source Initiative
*An online version of Lawrence Rosen's book ''Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law'' ().
Understanding Open Source Software – by Red Hat's Mark Webbink, Esq.
— an overview of copyright and open source. {{FOSS * Terms of service Free culture movement