This would be very difficult, because it would mean evaluating not just the statutes but various bodies of case law for example, open source licenses usually have a strong disclaimer of liability for the copyright holder — but we don't know how or whether the author would be protected from liability for software released into the public domain in various jurisdictions.
This approach would not be useful to the OSI's mission, because open source is an international phenomenon and we only want to approve licenses that meet the Open Source Definition everywhere. Thus we recommend that you always apply an approved Open Source license to software you are releasing, rather than try to waive copyright altogether. Using a clear, recognized Open Source license actually makes it easier for others to know that your software meets the Open Source Definition.
It also enables the protection of attribution, and various other non-restrictive rights, that cannot be reliably enforced when there is no license.
There are certain circumstances, such as with U. In these cases, while it would be inaccurate to display the OSI logo or say that the license is OSI-approved since there is no license , nevertheless we think it is accurate to say that such software is effectively open source, or open source for most practical purposes, even though it is not officially released under an open source license.
This is assuming, of course, that in the laws of releasing jurisdiction the meaning of "public domain" is compatible with the Open Source Definition. After all, the freedoms guaranteed by open source licenses are still present, and it is possible for the familiar dynamics of open source collaboration to arise around the software. For a detailed discussion of the complexities of the public domain and open source, search for the words "public domain" and "PD" in the subject headers of the January , February , and March archives of the OSI License Review mailing list.
And if the thought of reading all those conversations is daunting, please take that as more evidence that it's just better to use an approved Open Source License if you can! See also the CC0 question. For a different viewpoint than the one presented above, see unlicense. At this time, we do not recommend releasing software using the the CC0 public domain dedication. Creative Commons Zero is a legal device known as a "public domain dedication". It is essentially a statement of intent by the copyright holder to waive copyright ownership in the work — that is, the copyright holder wishes to place the work into the public domain.
Because such a waiver is perhaps surprisingly not possible in all jurisdictions, CC0 also contains a "Public License Fallback" clause that goes into effect "should any part of the Waiver for any reason be judged legally invalid or ineffective under applicable law".
The fallback is essentially a copyright license that is very similar to an Open Source license, in that it gives up most of the restrictive powers associated with copyright, and allows redistribution and modification of the work.
In February , Creative Commons submitted CC0 to the OSI for approval as an open source license, requesting that the OSI evaluate the public license fallback section, since the rest of the text is a waiver of rights rather than a license. CC0 was not explicitly rejected, but the License Review Committee was unable to reach consensus that it should be approved, and Creative Commons eventually withdrew the application.
The most serious of the concerns raised had to do with the effects of clause 4 a , which reads: "No While many open source licenses simply do not mention patents, it is exceedingly rare for open source licenses to explicitly disclaim any conveyance of patent rights, and the Committee felt that approving such a license would set a dangerous precedent, and possibly even weaken patent infringement defenses available to users of software released under CC0.
If you don't distribute source code, then what you are distributing cannot meaningfully be called "Open Source". And if you don't distribute at all, then by definition you're not distributing source code, so you're not distributing anything Open Source. Think of it this way: Open Source licenses are always applied to the source code — so if you're not distributing the source, then you're not distributing the thing to which an Open Source license applies.
You might or might not distribute binaries; that's a separate question. But while some Open Source licenses allow you to distribute binary code without distributing the corresponding source, it is only the source code that can be "open source". The binaries alone cannot be Open Source, because you're not making any source code available to be open. If someone else distributes the source code under an Open Source license, then that's still Open Source, of course.
You can choose any license from the open source licenses listed starting here: opensource. Most people select one from the "popular" category, but you are free to choose any listed license. If this is your first time choosing an open source license, we recommend that you find someone who has experience with open source licensing and talk to them about your project — that will help you choose the most appropriate license.
The person doesn't have to be a lawyer; it could be a developer who has experience releasing open source code.
The section Choosing a License at the Civic Commons wiki may be useful, and you can learn more about open source licenses from, Section 3. Unlike bilateral copyright licenses, which are negotiated between two parties and embody a truce between them for business purposes, multilateral copyright licenses — of which open source licenses are a kind — are community agreements.
They express the consensus of how a community chooses to collaborate. They also embody its ethical assumptions, even if they are not explicitly enumerated. When that consensus includes giving permission to all to use, study improve and share the code without prejudice, the license is an open source license.
The Open Source Definition provides an objective test of evaluating that such a license is indeed an open source license and delivers the software freedom we all expect. Since licenses are the consensus of communities, it is natural that different communities will have different licenses, that communities with different norms will find fault with the licenses used by others, and that all will regard their way as optimum.
The arguments over this will be as deep as the gulf between the philosophical positions of the communities involved. Ultimately, there is no license that is right for every community.
This question isn't actually specific to open source licenses — it's really just about how to apply some particular copyright license whether open source or not to your software.
Please note that the OSI is not a legal services organization and does not provide legal advice. If the license you want to apply has such instructions, just follow them.
If it does not, then look at the previous two examples or at other licenses that contain similar instructions and follow a similar recipe, adjusting for the license you're actually using of course. The Software Freedom Law Center also maintains a guide on managing copyright information within open source projects. Finally, this guide may also help, though please note again that neither it nor this FAQ item constitutes legal advice. Note that releasing software under an open source license does not involve contacting the OSI, signing up to some process, or handing a copy of your software to the OSI or any other organization for evaluation.
You just publish the software with an OSI-approved open source license attached, in the manner described above — that's all you need to do. Many open source projects will only accept patches code contributions or documentation contributions from people who have submitted a legal document known as a contributor agreement.
Contributor agreements are not open source licenses — rather, they are a way for the contributor to tell the project that it has the right to distribute the new contributions under the project's existing open source license. Some contributor agreements also allow for the project to distribute the contributions under other open source licenses too, which enables projects to change their license in the future, and some agreements even allow the project to distribute the contributions under any license the project wants.
There are two kinds of contributor agreements. In a Contributor License Agreement CLA , the original contributor retains copyright ownership of their contributions, but grants the project a broad set of rights such that the project can incorporate and distribute the contributions as it needs to. In a Copyright Assignment Agreement CAA , the contributor actually transfers copyright ownership of the contributions to the project, who can then license it however they want since they own it but a CAA typically grants very broad non-exclusive rights back to the contributor so that they too can use, distribute, sublicense etc their contribution freely.
With both CLAs and CAAs, it is of course necessary that "the project" be some kind of legal entity able to enter into agreements. Sometimes the project is incorporated itself, usually as a non-profit entity; sometimes it is represented by an umbrella non-profit organization such as the Apache Software Foundation or the Software Freedom Conservancy ; sometimes a for-profit corporation considers itself the main sponsor of the project and requests contributor agreements in order to manage the development community and maintain a public distribution of the software in question.
For more about contributor agreements in general, and some examples, see civiccommons. See also the Project Harmony , " Definitely not! This isn't even about Open Source, really: in general, you should not remove a valid copyright notice, no matter what license it specifies.
Copyright notices are legal notices; they are also a source of information about the provenance of source code, and if that information is stripped out, recipients of downstream copies have no easy way to rediscover it.
Sometimes you can; it depends on the Open Source license. Authors often want you to be able to do this, so most shared libraries are licensed under a permissive license or one that allows linking under certain circumstances e. A very small number of libraries use the GPL , which only allows linking with proprietary works if the licensor grants an explicit exception. Thus, you are wise to check the licenses that your program links to. The community expects that all code linked to GPL code will be licensed under the GPL, even if the link is made at runtime using a shared library.
As long as you own that source code, all that you need to do is choose one of the approved Open Source licenses , include a copy of the license text, typically in a filenamed "COPYRIGHT", including a statement saying that you are licensing the code under that copyright, and give it to somebody else!
Of course, you probably want to give it to a lot of people in order to gain the maximum benefit from giving away your code. A number of websites will help you do that: berlios. While languages like PHP , Perl or Python have implementations that are licensed under Open Source licenses, that doesn't turn all code written in these languages or run under such implementations into Open Source.
The code written in such languages or run under such implementations would need to be licensed under an approved Open Source license in order to be Open Source.
Colloquially, to "distribute" a program means to give someone else a copy of its code — either its source code, or its binary executable code, or both. Merely allowing people to invoke a program on your server, for example via networked API calls, does not constitute distribution of the program as generally understood. To avoid confusion, some licenses use the terms "propagate" and "convey" instead of "distribute".
Propagation includes copying, distribution with or without modification , making available to the public, and in some countries other activities as well. The definition for "convey" narrows it down, however: " Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying. In a legal context, you may wish to use similar precision. Not all programs have separate source and binary forms. For programs written in so-called "scripting" languages there is generally only a source code form though sometimes compressed, for example via the minification often performed on Javascript code prior to distribution.
But other programming languages are typically compiled to an architecture-specific executable form and can optionally be distributed as executables without source code. The distinction between source code and executable form is important for understanding the terms and conditions of some open source licenses, so if you don't have the necessary technical background, you should consult someone who does.
The Open Source Initiative is not a legal services organization and generally cannot help you when someone is violating a copyleft license. However, as of late , one of the organizations below may be able to help note that most of the enforcement they do is about the GNU GPL and AGPL licenses, though in theory they can help enforce other copyleft licenses too :.
You can sell services based on the code i. The only kind of profit strategy that is incompatible with Open Source is monopoly-based sales, also known as "royalties". See this article for how to think about business strategies that make money from Open Source. Also, this survey of open source leaders including many OSI Directors provides several business models for Free and Open Source software.
Yes, you can. But depending on the license, you probably can't stop your customers from selling it in the same manner as you. See the commercial use for more details. No, at least not any more than they could otherwise.
Open Source is about software source code, not about identity. That is, letting people use your code under an Open Source license is not the same as letting them use your trademarks or other identifying attributes, except insofar as they would be permitted to anyway for example, in nominative use doctrine.
There are many companies and other organizations that release open source code while exercising tight control over their trademarks. Trademarks and other marks of attribution are primarily about preventing public confusion over identity and provenance, and therefore trademark regulation is useful in Open Source software in the same way it is useful generally.
Alas, no, it is a trademark and we need to retain control over it. Please see our Trademark and Logo Usage guidelines. You can always use a trademark in a truthful manner to refer accurately to an entity. Yes, but you don't have to ask permission. It's always okay to link to anybody 's site. Linking to something is like saying its name and address out loud.
Generally, yes. Look at the bottom of each page for the Creative Commons License. That gives you fairly broad permission to re-use the material; read the license to see the exact permissions. The best place to discuss an issue about an open source license, or about a potential open source license, is on our license-discuss mailing list, about which you can read more on our mailing lists page.
You do not have to be subscribed to post, but posts from non-members are moderated solely to prevent spam , so please be patient if it takes a few days for your first post to show up. For questions about submitting new licenses, you may also want to read about the license approval process.
We are not a legal services organization and we can't give you legal advice. If you want legal advice, you need to have an attorney-client relationship with a lawyer.
Even if the lawyer is pro bono , there still needs to be a formal client arrangement. Without giving you legal advice, we can still give you advice about community norms and expectations. It won't be legal advice, but you may find it useful when talking with your lawyer or, if necessary, coming to a decision without the help of a lawyer. The OSI's work, and thus funding support, focuses on the creation and curation of resources that enable, promote, and protect open source software development, adoption, and communities.
The OSI cannot directly fund your open source software project, we fund projects that raise awareness and adoption of your open source software project.
If you are looking for funding opportunities and other resources to support your open source software development project, you may want to try and join, or align your project with an existing open source software community.
If you can find a complimentary project or supporting foundation much of the work needed to develop your own community of practice will be done. It will also introduce you and your software to other projects, developers, contributors, and sponsors who are working on similar or aligned efforts, understand your project and its value, and thus may want to collaborate with you to see it succeed as a part of their larger work, project, and or foundation.
Unfortunately, we can't; Open Source is now too big for us to keep track of all the people and activities in it. A web search engine is your best bet. For specific software packages, you may also find it useful to look in Freecode.
Visit the lists page, and click on the appropriate "unsubscribe" link to generate the necessary email request. Most open source projects are run via online discussion forums: mailing lists, wikis, chat rooms, etc. We encourage you to find a project you care about, look at their web site to see what kinds of discussion forums they're using, and join those forums. Skip to main content. Home Contact Donate Login. Search form. About Open Source Licenses Open source licenses are licenses that comply with the Open Source Definition — in brief, they allow software to be freely used, modified, and shared.
Complete lists that include all approved licenses are available: sorted by name alphabetical sorted by category Questions? What is "free software" and is it the same as "open source"? What is "copyleft"? Is it the same as "open source"? What is a "permissive" Open Source license? Which Open Source license should I choose to release my software under?
0コメント