The difference between the gpl and the lgpl is that with the lgpl, the entire work doesnt have to have the same license. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. Feb 23, 20 tldrlegal provides generally good summaries of licenses. Products derived from this software may not be called apache, nor may apache appear in their name, without prior written permission of the apache software foundation. This would be incompatible with asfs requirement that all apache software must be distributed under the apache license 2. Apache adherents believe that software can be free and is perhaps best when free. The second license the ieee will be using is the apache license, version 2. Apache licensing and distribution faq apache software. See the apache license for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the apache license.
Apr 02, 2016 the free software foundation considers the apache license, version 2. Vertrigo is a freeware compilation of free software under gpl, apache license. Nov 08, 2015 linus torvalds says gpl v3 violates everything that gplv2 stood for duration. It allows users to use the software for any purpose, to distribute it, to modify it, and to distribute modified versions of the software under the terms of the license, without concern for royalties. The free software foundation prefers copyleft sharealike free software licensing rather than permissive free software licensing for most purposes. Some of the mostinstalled open source software is gpllicensed, such as linux, wordpress, and wikipedias underlying software, mediawiki. Non software enterprises like banks or states and folk like your dad benefit a lot from gpl license. Understanding opensource software licensing and free software. Why corporations favors the apache license over the gpllgpl.
The licenses are incompatible in one direction only, and it is a result of asfs licensing. The gnu general public licence, or gpl as its often called, is the most popular free software licence and its used by many different projects, including the linux kernel, the gnu tools and literally hundreds of others. Apache in some ways is similar in that it seeks to provide very similar freedom of use without including significant restrictions on top of what you saw in the bsd license. All software produced by the apache software foundation or any of its projects or subjects is licensed according to the terms of the documents listed below. The software freedom law center provides practical advice for developers about including permissively licensed source. However, gplv3 software could only be combined and share code with gplv2 software if the gplv2 license used had the optional or later clause and the. It consists of the gnu gpl version 2, with one additional section that affero added with fsf approval. The gnu general public license gnu gpl or simply gpl is a widely used free software license. Next time we will expand on license compatibility when making adjustments to the source code of the original work.
That is, the complete source code of mysql is freely available. The default license throughout the repository is apache license. To apply the apache license to your work, attach the following boilerplate notice, with the fields enclosed by brackets replaced with your own identifying information. However, gplv3 software cannot be included in apache. What are the essential differences between the bsd and mit. Top 10 apache license questions answered whitesource. Licensing and intellectual property rights of open source. This is a comparison of free and opensource software licenses.
Open source licenses grant permission for anybody to use, modify, and share licensed software for any purpose, subject to conditions preserving the provenance and openness of the software. So, for instance, the mit license grants users the right to deal in the software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, andor sell copies of the software. Apache 2 software can therefore be included in gplv3 projects, because the gplv3 license accepts our software into gplv3 works. Fsf explicitly calls out that combination as not allowable for public distribution.
Copy it on your own server, on your clients server, on your local workstations, wherever and. They want others to be able to build on and share their code. Many developers and designers want to release their work into the world as opensource projects. Php 4, php 5 and php 7 are distributed under the php license v3. The affero general public license is a free software license, copyleft, and incompatible with the gnu gpl. The following licenses are sorted by the number of conditions, from most gnu agplv3 to. So if the code was licensed under the apache license, you can use it in a gpl licensed application.
Keep in mind that this is the apache software foundations interpretation of its apache 2. Tldrlegal provides generally good summaries of licenses. If the software developer did this, they would immediately lose their right to use the library under the apache license. Unlike the apache license, the gpl embeds the decision as to the codes open source nature into the code itself. Apr 06, 2007 in the early days of the gplv3 revision process, compatibility with the apache license 2. So, youre working on that cool new project for a while and youre ready now to make the critical move from closed source to open source. However, gplv3 software cannot be included in apache projects.
Most designers use opensource software or code on a regular basis wordpress, drupal and many. Even better, for a substantial program, use the apache 2. What is open source software vs proprietary software closed source software gpl license. Let us examine why these corporations stay away from gpl and favor the apache license. The gnulgpl is very popular among independent developers and companies which mainly deal with open source software. An uninstaller allows you to remove vertrigo from hard disc. No, you may not distribute the combined daemon using gplv2 and aplv2 licensed material. Apache is another popular open source software license that is used for the apache web server software, which is and has been the most popular web server on the internet since 1996. Software can become incompatible with secondary licenses in one of two ways. The long and short of itif you use open source software within your software development project, any permissive license should be fine. Jan 21, 20 apache is decent model when you have expertise and money, but do not have significant market share yet.
If i want to distribute a derived work made partially from apache software under the apache license version 2, and partially from foobarcos software under the gpl version 2, the fact that roy fielding or even the apache foudnation is ok with it does not solve the problem. Subject to the terms and conditions of this license, each contributor hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide, nonexclusive, nocharge, royaltyfree, irrevocable except as stated in this section patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the work, where such license applies only to those patent claims licensable by such contributor that are necessarily. You can find the legal text for the gpl here, but heres a quick summary of what it means. The opensource community is vibrant because of this. If you want to use a lax, permissive noncopyleft free software license, it is much better to use the modified bsd license, the x11 license or the expat license. At the 5th gplv3 conference, richard stallman was recorded saying. Xml commons contains some software and documentation that is covered under a number of different licenses. Gnu project the gnu operating system and the free software. The apache software foundation asf, clearly say that forking some apache licensed code into your gpl project is illegal because then the apache software would have to be distributed under gplv3.
What is foss licensesapache, bsd, gpl, lgpl explained. Subject to the terms and conditions of this license, each contributor hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide, nonexclusive, nocharge, royaltyfree, irrevocable except as stated in this section patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the work, where such license applies only to those. If the code was licensed under the gpl, any derivative work must be also under the gpl and cannot, without the holders permission, be used under the apace license. It is thus ensured that mysql will continue to be freely available in the sense of. The gnu general public license is a free software license, created by the free software foundationfsf. The software must not be incompatible with secondary licenses. Open source software goes against the traditional software development company model of build software and then sell it for as much as you can, with as high a volume as you can. May 31, 2012 of these licenses, the apache license is seen pretty infrequently outside of apache software foundation software. This is an open source license, certified by the open source initiative the php license is a bsdstyle license which does not have the copyleft restrictions associated with gpl. The new section, 2d, covers the distribution of application programs through web services or computer networks. That is the price im charging for allowing you to derive from my work. Yes, giving users even a smidgen of freedom like the gpl does is harmful. May 24, 2017 the gplv3 user terms are not met when using the apache 2. Java compilation software for jsp pages is provided by eclipse, which is open source software.
The orginal software and related information is available at. Creative commons licenses are several licenses released on december 16, 2002 by creative commons, a u. Opensource software is available for virtually any application you could think of. Gnu lesser gpl and apache software licenses denver business. In this video, i will explain what are open source licenses and which one to use. The free software foundation considers the apache license, version 2. Gnu gpl, lgpl, apache licence types and differences. Difference between different types of open sources licenses. Apr 29, 2009 the general public license has long been the preferred license for opensource businesses, but new analysis suggests that apache style licensing may yield more adoption and money. Among the two gpl is the basis of open source software for programmers. It is important to note that there are no files in the richfaces source that individually contain both apache. Any open source software license or open license for media see above also applies to software documentation.
These and other answers about the scope of patent grants for contributions under the apache 2. Mit versus bsd versus apache versus gpl versus lgpl versus agpl. The build produces two sets of binaries one set that falls under the elastic. Why are the license files for the different apache software foundation projects different. For a list of licenses not specifically intended for software, see list of free content licenses. The asf and its projects release their software products under the apache license. Linus torvalds says gpl v3 violates everything that gplv2 stood for duration.
The gpl is by far the best software license for endusers of the code. You would need to change to gplv2 for the entire project. Gpl version 3 is designed to be compatible with two important licenses. I can take program a and use it, read the source, modify it e. The common understanding while i was working on apache code a while back was that you could incorporate bsd, mit, and similar licensed libraries but you could not do the same for gpl based licenses. The apache license is a permissive free software license written by the apache software foundation asf. Most of these opinions were formed in discussions on the debianlegal mailing list in response to questions from potential package maintainers or licensors. This page presents the opinion of some debianlegal contributors on how certain licenses follow the debian free software guidelines dfsg. Gpl, lgpl, apache, bsd, the great thing about open source code is the large amount of high quality code that is available and many embedded projects use foss code as it really speeds up development time. Its list distinguishes between free software licenses that are compatible or incompatible with the fsfs copyleft gnu general public license. The apache software license was based in large part on bsd and mit style licenses. Compatible, ie that gpl3 software can link too apl software, is new gpl2 code wasnt able to link toinclude apache licensed code, is new. You can freely use, modify, distribute and sell a software licensed under the apache license without worrying about the use of software.
Open source licenses explained which one to use apache. What are the differences between gpl v2 and gpl v3 licenses. Vertrigoserv is a complete free wamp server allowing php development for windows. The question seems to be whether there is a licensing problem in richfaces because, while much of the code is specifically licensed under lgpl version 2.
The real story is that hard work has been done to make the gpl3 compatible with the apache license 2 or apl v2, asf is the apache software foundation and not a license. Its also arguable whether the licenses mentioned other than apache have an implicit patent grant. Mit license spot the differences due to the helpful visualizations at a glance category. The following licenses are sorted by the number of conditions, from most gnu agplv3 to none unlicense. The differences between the gpl, lgpl and the bsd fosswire.
Who could say the terrible things that would happen if we dont keep the peasants well whipped and in their place. Developers like it out of a sense of fairness i open sourced my code so you should too. Distributing the derived work under the apache license terms is a. With open source licenses explained here, it should help you choose the right open source license for your project. Gplv3 improved compatibility with several open source software licenses such as apache license, version 2. We welcome enquiries from maintainers considering particular licenses, but we. Comparison of free and opensource software licenses. One of the most interesting features of mysql is the license. The comparison only covers software licenses with a linked article for details, approved by at least one expert group at the fsf, the osi, the debian project or the fedora project. Apache license spot the differences due to the helpful visualizations at a glance category. For that reason, i would only use the apache license if i was absolutely sure i wanted it and nothing else.
Anthony dos santos christopher nicolae gauthier chaty jean max saintsurin. The apache license, on the other hand, is favored by the big corporations for their open source projects. You seem to be saying that if i choose the gpl as the license for my software, ive removing your ability to redistribute software that you derive from mine under a non gpl license. Various licenses and comments about them gnu project. A short guide to open source licenses smashing magazine. Let say a software developer uses a library for android phones to make a game, and then makes a patent claim in an attempt to extort license fees from other users wishing to make games using the same library. Software licensing gpl agpl bsd mit apache eula youtube. In doing these things and more, they more than doubled the length of the gpl.
The content on this website, of which is the author, is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4. This is obviously not an indictment of the license itself, but it means developers will be less familiar with it. In contrast to lgpl, gpl requires that you provide the code for all changes made to the software. If you use different licenses for your software and its documentation, be sure to specify that source code examples in the documentation are also licensed under the software license. I agree with the comment about consulting a lawyer one who knows about software license issues, though. Open source license compatibility gplv3 and apache 2. Traditional software companies have an extremely hard time when the economy slows down, but open source companies can flourish either way.
1600 1019 509 818 1102 150 771 30 846 349 375 1384 923 86 914 47 1547 1328 195 1423 1361 727 777 1230 394 51 901 632 906 1214 1039 1352