An idea that is suggested every now and then is to look at software licensing and give it a kind of “Creative Commons” feel; that is, present the terms of the license in a pleasant and orderly way by means of icons. We’ll take the top 10 licenses and for each, label it with icons
Read more »Easy to Understand Guide to 10 Free Software Licenses
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Licenses are Not the Hard Part
In looking back over the more than 15 years that HP has been involved in FOSS, I conclude that, what has changed is that licenses are no longer the hard part.
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A Bit of Licence
One of the striking aspects of the free software community is its obsession with licences. It's as if within every hacker there's a lawyer struggling to get out. But maybe it's not so surprising; as Larry Lessig reminded us, “code is law”, and the reverse is also true in the sense that the licence adopted has a big impact on how the software is produced.
Read more »GPLv2 clause 6
So I talked about licenses. And license obligations. And interesting bits of the GPL version 2. There’s one clause of the GPL version 2 that I’d like to single out because it’s one that is surprising to me — and rarely mentioned. Clause 6.
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Open Core: The worst of both worlds
However, I think that most them are missing the elephant in the room: Open core is not sustainable in the long term because it represents the worst of both worlds. Open core tries to find a middle ground between proprietary software and free software, but it reaps the benefits of neither and inherits the problems of both.
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The Difference Between EULAs and Open Source Licenses
In France, the GPL has scored yet another major win in court. What makes this infringements case special is that it was filed not by the developers of the infringed-upon code, but by users, demonstrating that they, too, can successfully enforce the GPL.
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GPLv2 Less Popular
Latest statistics from Black Duck Software show version 2 of the General Public License (GPLv2) sliding in popularity. Just under half of all the open source projects contained in the September 2009 statistics used the GPLv2.
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Is use of the GPL really decreasing?
Is it reasonable to raise the question "does X still matter?" when the X in question is in use among nearly two-thirds of the target users under discussion?
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A new GCC runtime library license snag?
The saga of the GCC runtime library has been covered here a couple of times in the past. The library's license is a legal hack which tries to accomplish a set of seemingly conflicting goals.
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Why the GNU GPL Still Matters
Contributing to projects that use more permissive licences than the GNU GPL means that it is likely that many will not contribute because of their distaste for free riders.
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No license payments lure, as open source on the rise
The absence of upfront license payments is the main driver in open source adoption, along with the lower costs of total ownership, for companies in the European market despite lingering market concerns about the level of software support and the quality of open source software.
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Introducing RDF for GNU Licenses
I'm happy to announce that Resource Description Framework (RDF) metadata now accompanies all of the GNU licenses. This provides a great new tool that developers can use to raise awareness about the free software license they use for their work, and that users can use to find the software they're looking for.
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Software Freedom Law Center calls for switch to GPLv3
Bradley Kuhn of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) recommends that projects using GPL version 2 upgrade to the newer GPL version 3. One of the features of GPLv3 is better protection against possible patent threats than its predecessor.
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AGPL: Open Source Licensing in a Networked Age
When the reforged GNU General Public License, Version 3 (GPLv3) was finalized and released to an expectant public on June 29, 2007, the most important decision may have been one postponed.
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Free addons for IceCat
"The http://addons.mozilla.org website, hosted on Mozilla servers, offers many addons to extend FireFox with additional features. The majority of these addons are not developed directly by Mozilla but by third party developers.
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