computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, hardware and softw ...

, the Common Public License (CPL) is a

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

open-source software Open-source software (OSS) is Software, computer software that is released under a Open-source license, license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and Software distribution, distribute the software an ...

license published by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

. The

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

and

Open Source Initiative The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a California public benefit corporation "actively involved in Open Source community-building, education, and public advocacy to promote awareness and the importance of non-proprietary software". Governance The ...

have approved the license terms of the CPL.

Definition

The CPL has the stated aims of supporting and encouraging collaborative

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

development while still retaining the ability to use the CPL'd content with software licensed under other licenses, including many proprietary licenses. The

Eclipse Public License The Eclipse Public License (EPL) is a free and open source software license most notably used for the Eclipse IDE and other projects by the Eclipse Foundation. It replaces the Common Public License (CPL) and removes certain terms relating t ...

(EPL) consists of a slightly modified version of the CPL. The CPL has some terms that resemble those of the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

(GPL), but some key differences exist. A similarity relates to distribution of a modified

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. It is one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and other intangibl ...

: under either license (CPL or GPL), one must make the source code of a modified program available to others. CPL, like the

GNU Lesser General Public License The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

, allows non-CPL-licensed software to link to a library under CPL without requiring the linked source code to be made available to the licensee. CPL lacks compatibility with both versions of the GPL because it has a " choice of law" section in section 7, which restricts legal disputes to a certain court. Another source of incompatibility is the differing

copyleft Copyleft is the legal technique of granting certain freedoms over copies of copyrighted works with the requirement that the same rights be preserved in derivative works. In this sense, ''freedoms'' refers to the use of the work for any purpose, ...

requirements. To reduce the number of open source licenses, IBM and Eclipse Foundation agreed upon using solely the

in the future.Mike Milinkovich - One Small Step Towards Reducing License Proliferation
/ref> Open Source Initiative therefore lists the Common Public License as deprecated and superseded by EPL.

Projects using the Common Public License

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

has released its Windows Installer XML (WiX) developer tool, Windows Template Library (WTL) and the

FlexWiki The history of wikis began in 1994, when Ward Cunningham gave the name " WikiWikiWeb" to the knowledge base, which ran on his company's website at c2.com, and the wiki software that powered it. The wiki went public in March 1995, the date used ...

engine under the CPL as

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...

projects. * Some projects of the COIN-OR Foundation use the CPL.

References

External links

Open Source Initiative The CPL License

The CPL License from IBM

The COIN-OR web page
{{IBM FOSS IBM Free and open-source software licenses Copyleft software licenses de:Eclipse Public License

Definition

Projects using the Common Public License

See also

References

External links