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Text of the page (random words):
part of the reason we have a formal license approval process see also our page on license proliferation for why this is a problem is some license an open source license even if it is not listed on your web site in general no we run all licenses through an approval process to provide an accepted standard on which licenses are open source and we list the approved ones be dubious of claimed open source ness for licenses that haven t gone through the process see also the license proliferation page for why this matters so much is a license an open source license if it is just a few words different from a license listed on your web site many older licenses such as the bsd license have several variations that differ only by a few words or sentences unfortunately it is not possible for osi to approve every variation so we cannot say if a specific variation is approved where possible please avoid using these variants and instead use the same version used on the osi website what about software in the public domain is that open source for most practical purposes it is sort of this is a complicated question so please read on public domain is a technical term in copyright law that refers to works not under copyright either because they were never in copyright to begin with for example works authored by u s government employees on government time and as part of their job are automatically in the public domain or because their copyright term has finally lapsed and they have fallen into the public domain not all jurisdictions have a public domain and it doesn t always mean exactly the same thing in the jurisdictions that do have it furthermore even where it is clear what it means it s still not a license to be subject to a license a work must still be in copyright that means there is no way for the public domain as a concept to go through the osi evaluation and approval process we wouldn t be evaluating a license text instead we would have to somehow evaluate the laws themselves in different jurisdictions and say which jurisdictions have a public domain that meets the open source definition and does not create problems for software authors and users 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 s government works as described above where it is not easy to apply a license and the software must be released into the public domain 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 2012 february 2012 and march 2012 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 org what about the creative commons cc0 cc zero public domain dedication is that open source 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 2012 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 an unexpectedly intense and detailed discussion followed search for cc0 and creative commons zero in the subject headers of the february 2012 and march 2012 archives of the osi license review mailing list 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 patent rights held by affirmer are waived abandoned surrendered licensed or otherwise affected by this document 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 see also the public domain question distributing and using open source software what if i do not want to distribute my program in source code form or what if i don t want to distribute it in either source or binary form 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 note that copyleft open source licenses require redistributors to make source code available under certain circumstances for example see the gnu general public license and gnu affero general public license see also the what is distribution question which open source license should i choose to release my software under you can choose any license from the open source licenses listed starting here opensource org licenses 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 2 of the ebook introduction to free software by hernandez jimenez barahona pascual and robles and karl fogel s book producing open source software chapter 2 choosing a license and applying it which open source license is best 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 use the one that best aligns with your community s objectives and ethos how do i apply some open source license to software i m releasing 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 however many licenses come with instructions on how to apply them for example see the section appendix how to apply the apache license to your work in the apache 2 0 license or the section how to apply these terms to your new programs in the gpl 3 0 license 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 what are contributor agreements are they like open source licenses 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 org contributor_agreements see also the project harmony a community centered group focused on contributor agreements for free and open source software foss can i strip out the copyrights on open source code and put in my own 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 can i write proprietary code that links to a shared library that s open source 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 g the lgpl 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 i want to publish some code as open source code can i g...
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