A Guide to Open Source Licensing

A Guide to Open Source Licensing: "

If you're working on or launching an open source project, one of the most basic decisions you must make is which license the project will be released under, and choosing the perfect license is more complex than ever. Over the years, we've provided many free guidelines on this topic, but it's a moving target. In this post, you'll find our updeated collection of all the things you need to know to make an informed open source license decision.

The Free Software Foundation is the principal organizer of the GNU Project, and you can find the FSF's guidelines on choosing an open source license in this post. The guidelines cover how to choose an overall license for a project, and also cover making decisions on licensing modified versions of an existing project.

Through the FSF guidelines, you can gain knowledge about what Copyleft is, and it's wise to learn more about the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), and the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL). t's also worth looking into our post on the Software Freedom Law Center's Legal Issue Primer. It contains a very thorough discussion of most popular open source licenses. And you can find much more introductory material on open source licenses in this post.

These posts also provide much good background on licenses:

First, Know They Licenses

The Unlicense: A License For No License

FSFE and GPL-Violations.org on Reporting (and Avoiding) Licensing Issues

Thwarting Threats: Free OSS Legal Primer Boasts Big Authors

One reason to know about open source licenses is to keep things legal, and we have covered a number of legal resources that can help keep open source projects and developers out of harm's way. In this post, you'll find a discussion of a journal focused on open source law called International Free and Open Source Software Law Review. In the journal's archives, you'll find extremely informed discussions of licensing and patent practices, among other topics.

A little bit of homework can mean a lot when evaluating open source licenses. Hopefully some of the guidelines above will be of help to you.

Image courtesy of The International Free and Open Source Software Law Review.

Related Activities Comments (0) Post a Comment Ask a Question

Related Software gnu (add alternative, post review) licenses (add alternative, post review)

Related Blog Posts When Your Open Source Code No Longer Belongs to You (4 comments) Project Harmony: Red Hat and Others are Early Critics (post comment) Can Project Harmony Streamline Rules for Open Source Contributions? (post comment)

---

"

Before you get locked into Lync, consider open source options | Open Source Software - InfoWorld

Before you get locked into Lync, consider open source options | Open Source Software - InfoWorld

Lync Takes Center Stage at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference

By Alan Percy, Audiocodes | Jul 14, 2011 | No comments yet ...

One of the common themes here at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Los Angeles this week is the emergence of Microsoft Lync, the software company's unified corporate IM, presence and collaboration tool as a major part of Microsoft’s business.In a Wednesday-morning keynote to the 15,000-plus Microsoft partners in attendance at the Staples Center here, Jon Roskill, Microsoft’s worldwide channel chief, told partners that unified communications—i.e., Lync--represents Microsoft’s next billion-dollar business opportunity, and that it's a business ripe with opportunity for partner services and value-add.

Full story...

SMB (50 Line) Market Share

No Jitter | blog | Small PBX Market Lifted Cisco and Avaya Sales in 2010

No Jitter | blog | Small PBX Market Lifted Cisco and Avaya Sales in 2010

9 Steps to Consider When Valuing Your Startup

9 Steps to Consider When Valuing Your Startup

Determining your startup’s worth is one of the hardest parts of the fundraising process. There is no magic formula that will spit out a valuation, namely because the number is highly subjective. The entrepreneur, for example, anticipates huge potential and may therefore put a high valuation on his company. The investor, on the other hand sees a company that needs capital to grow and may fail without it, so he may set a low valuation. To help the process, we’ve devised a few considerations to help value your company.

Microsoft Windows Phone Beats Android - April Fools

Pyramid Points - Why Windows Phone Will Beat Android http://t.co/AlwoyOu via @AddThis (April Fools)  Funny, Microsoft is history, no impact.  Amazing attempt at analysis.