Planning on using Open source files in your project. Then this is what you need to know. Do treat this a guide on licensing schemes.

1. Hidden gotcha’s of Various Open
source licenses
A subtle look into what licenses
and what it means to you the
software developer!
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2. Free Licences
• The majority of free software falls under a small
set of licenses. The most popular of these
licenses are:
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3. Whats the Gotcha!!!
• Certain licenses restrict distribution in order to
force derived projects to allow the freedom to
use, study, modify, and redistribute the derived
project.
• Some free software licenses carry requirements
and restrictions which apply to distributors.
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4. GNU General Public License
• The author retains copyright and permits redistribution under
the restriction that all such redistribution is licensed under
the same license.
• Additions and modifications to the original source code by
others must also be licensed under the same "copyleft" license
whenever they are distributed with part of the original
licensed product.
• Also known as Viral License.
• Copyleft provisions stated that when modified versions of free
software are distributed, they must be distributed under the
same terms as the original software.
• Any modifications made and redistributed by the end-user
must include the source code for these, and the license of any
derivative work must not put any additional restrictions
beyond what GPL allows
• Better not be part of any software that is bound to get
commercial.
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5. GNU General Public License
• This results in the new software being open
source as well.
• Developers who use GPL code in their product
must make the source code available to anyone
when they share or sell the object code.
• In this case, the source code must also contain
any changes the developers may have made.
• If GPL code is used but not shared or sold, the
code is not required to be made available and
any changes may remain private.
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6. BSD License
• Give unlimited permission to use, study, and
privately modify the software, and includes only
minimal requirements on redistribution. This
gives a user the permission to take the code and
use it as part of closed-source software or
software released under a proprietary
software license.
• Can be used in any software that is bound
to get commercial
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7. Mozilla Public License
• It is characterized as a hybridization of
the modified BSD license and GNU General
Public License (GPL).
• The MPL allows covered source code to be mixed
with other files under a different, even
proprietary license. However, code files licensed
under the MPL must remain under the MPL and
freely available in source form
• Can be used in any software that is bound
to get commercial
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8. MIT License
• Give unlimited permission to use, study, and
privately modify the software, and includes only
minimal requirements on redistribution.
• This gives a user the permission to take the code
and use it as part of closed-source software or
software released under a proprietary
software license.
• Can be used in any software that is bound
to get commercial
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9. Comparison
License Link with code using a different license
Release changes under a
different license
Academic Free License Yes Yes
Affero GPL only AGPLv3 + GPLv3 No
Apache License Yes Yes
Apple Public Source License Yes No
Artistic License Yes With restrictions
Berkeley Database License No No
BSD license Yes Yes
Boost Software License Yes Yes
CeCILL No No
Common Development and
Distribution License
Yes Yes
Code Project Open License Yes No
Common Public License Yes No
Cryptix General License Yes Yes
Eclipse Public License Yes No
Educational Community License Yes Yes
Eiffel Forum License Yes Yes
EUPL Yes
With an explicit
compatibility list
Fair Licence Yes Yes
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10. Comparison
License Link with code using a different license
Release changes under a
different license
GNU General Public License No No
GNU Lesser General Public
License
Yes No
Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source
Software License Agreement
? ?
IBM Public License Yes Yes
Intel Open Source License Yes Yes
ISC license Yes Yes
LaTeX Project Public License Yes Yes
MIT license / X11 license Yes Yes
Mozilla Public License Yes Limited
Netscape Public License Yes Limited
OPaC Free Public License No No
Open Software License Yes No
OpenSSL license Yes ?
PHP License Yes Yes
Public Domain Yes Yes
Python Software Foundation
License
Yes Yes
Q Public License No No
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11. Comparison
License
Link with code using a different
license
Release changes
under a different
license
Sun Industry Standards
Source License
Yes No
Sun Public License Yes No
Sybase Open Watcom
Public License
Yes No
W3C Software Notice
and License
Yes Yes
XCore Open Source
License
Yes Yes
XFree86 1.1 License Yes Yes
zlib/libpng license Yes Yes
Zope Public License Yes Yes
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12. Tools to make life easy
• Protex from the Black
Duck Suite
▫ Black Duck® Protex™
is the industry’s
leading solution for
managing open source
compliance.
▫ Protex integrates with
existing development
tools to automatically
scan, discover and
identify software
origins, an integral
step in the
development process
and essential for
enforcing license
compliance and
corporate policy
requirements.
• OpenLogic provides two scanning
tools, OSS Discovery and OSS
Deep Discovery, that can help you
identify the open source software
you're using.
– OSS Deep Discovery is a
scanning tool that scans
source code as well as binaries
to identify open source code
and licenses – even when the
open source code has been
copied or modified.
– OSS Discovery is a free, open
source scanning tool that
helps enterprises find the
open source software included
in their internal applications
and installed on corporate
workstations and servers.
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13. Sources
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
_license
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of
_free_software_licenses
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