Note: Free as in beer! Join MontaVista Software and distinguished open source licensing authority Jason Wacha for a review of issues surrounding open source licensing. Starting from base principles of differences between laws, licenses, and commercial agreements, Mr. Wacha will move on to issues surrounding the use of a General Public License (GPL) and how it affects Linux and other open source software.

Microsoft's current FAT file system licensing program could hobble the development and free distribution of GPL-licensed software, says an open-source legal advocate. However, licensing terms that were once published on Microsoft's website, which have since vanished, would have been compatible with the GPL.

Anne Zelenka recently predicted that software businesses will move from the extreme 'closed' and 'open' licensing models toward the center, what she refers to as 'clopen', or hybrid closed and open licensing models. I think she's missing something.

Some successful open-source companies are using a dual-licensing scheme. In short, software is released both through an open source version (e.g. licensed under the GNU GPL) and through a proprietary license usually reserved to paying customers.

What do all these licenses do for you? That's the 64 license question. Today I'm pondering if the current open source model is still valid or if it's outdated. Do we need licensing for open source software? Do we need the GPL, LGPL, APL and all the other licenses that plague...er, grace us? If your software is free and open source, why bother with a license at all?

Many have criticized syslog-ng, a replacement for the syslog logging daemon with many additional features, for not being open enough. Syslog-ng has a closed-source commercial version and keeps the entire code base under a single copyright by requiring copyright transfer for contributions, which has been a sore spot in the eyes of many people.

The casual view of open source software is that the code always comes first: releases are made when the code is ready, new contributors prove their chops by the quality of their code, and so forth.

MUNICH, Germany — With a new licensing model, software maker QNX tries a balancing act between the open source and commercial world.

A survey of 118 enterprise IT and development executives conducted by open source solution provider OpenLogic concludes that the "Open Core" model for open source licensing trails behind dual licensing and open source with commercial support, in terms of acceptability to the enterprise.