An open-source license is a type of license for

computer software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

and other products that allows the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comment (computer programming), comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a Computer program, p ...

, 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 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, ...

license). There have been debates about whether open source licenses, which permit copyholders to use, transfer and modify software, have adequate consideration 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 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. Ope ...

licenses are those approved 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) tax-exempt status. The organization w ...

(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 Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, ...

. 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 De ...

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

availability, but do not necessarily meet the user freedom criteria to be classified as

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 A waiver is the voluntary relinquishment or surrender of some known right or privilege. Regulatory agencies of state departments or the federal government may issue waivers to exempt companies from certain regulations. For example, a United S ...

into the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

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

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: * Distric ...

decisions.

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

Comparisons

Public domain

See also

References

External links