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Open Source License Comparison
rbb writes "Bryce Wilcox-O'Hearn, aka Zooko, has put together a simple chart that in just a few lines displays the characteristics of each of the most popular Open Source licenses. The table, which is currently in version 0.8.3, makes it easy to see in a glance how the licenses compare to one another." Easily digestible information - good for PHB [?] s.
OSI has a nice list of OpenSource licenses: www.opensource.org/licenses/index.html
But I suppose it won't be a help for PHBs if the comparison gets more complicated.
Our department quite often uses open-source projects as a basic part for in-house tools. Co-workers sometimes consider to call an external program but say "It's GPL, we would have to add a commandline-option, we don't want to make things complicated if we want to sell it."
I wish they would at least try to contact the original author and hear his opinion. I suppose most programmers would be willing to cooperate and support (for example) a generic interface to custom extensions.
So, I had a look at your page. While it's nice that you are doing this, won't you end up with this when you are done? I kinda missed the why bit.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
So current copyright law, which is supposed to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, all for the benefit of the public, now actually makes it difficult for a creator to voluntarily release his work to that public?
No sense. None at all.
One argument I want to anticipate is the idea that the original author can license the code in multiple ways so for example I could GPL an engine but still give licenses to friends so they can put it in their non GPLed games.
I find this argument to be disingenuous. The reason is simple. One of the biggest arguments to open source is that lots of people can contribute. Lots of people contrubuting makes the code more useful, new features, bugs fixed, etc. This new useful version of the code, as soon as it has more that just a few contributors, would be nearly impossible to license since you'd have to contact all the authors who's contributions will each need a separate license and who's email address may no longer be valid etc, etc, etc..
In other words, once the reason for GPLing in the first place has taken hold the idea that the code can be re-licensed effectively disappears.
BSD style doesn't have this problem.
Thanks, I knew you'd like me some day. :)
btw - it's "competency"
Tina
tinahdee beautiful jewelry: silver, gold, gemstones tinahdee.etsy.com tinahdee.com facebook.com/beautifuljewelry
Brief and to the point: what I need to convince my blockhead manager. Thanks again!
Anyone know?
What, me worry?
We now return you regularly.
Tina Gasperson
tinahdee beautiful jewelry: silver, gold, gemstones tinahdee.etsy.com tinahdee.com facebook.com/beautifuljewelry
OK, every once in a while I see a post that says something like "Free as in beer", but not free as in ??. Anyway, since the topic is licenses could someone please clarify the free as in X statements. Its been something I have not understood for a while. One of the few Slashdot things I've been out of the loop on.. hehe.. Thanks in advance.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Bill Gates prepared a chart of how much money his closed-source license has made him, N*Sync prepared a chart of how much money their CD sales have earned, and an unnamed open-source programmer made a sign that says "will prepare charts for food."
1) Judges these days tend to be pretty clueless about these issues, and may tend to do whatever the big corporation with the high-priced lawyers suggests. In other words, invalidate the parts of the license that benefit the community.
2) The longer these licenses are used, the more they will become part of our popular culture, and the harder it will be for a judge to consider striking them down.
I personally see MPL as non-free, because it disriminate against corporations with software-patents.
(If a corporation uses your code, add something
to it, which infridges their patent, and they have lost).
Though I see software-patents, ecspeccily as used in the US as an bad thing, the same holds in my eyes for the producers of wapons or riffles, or those who sell or buy them. And if an licence would discriminate against those, I think noone would call the licence free.
Zooko O'Whielacronx? Zooko O'Whielacronx? Other than Zaphod Beeblebrox that has to be the coolest name ever. How do I get one? That's awesome! (Is it Welsh, by any chance? I've always wanted to be a Welshman. I love it when there are 5 or 6 consonants in a row, and it looks totally unpronouncable, and then this fair-skinned beauty says it, and it's like music.)
I guess I'm rambling again. Must be off my meds. Miss Teschmacher!!
(Sorry -- thought I was logged in. Wanted to do this under my real name, so people would see it.) ...I don't really understand why you'd use the BSD license instead of public domain.
The BSD license includes a disclaimer of liability, so an author who releases software under it has some protection from suit. An author who
releases into the public domain (arguments about whether that is possible with software aside) has no protection from suit.
(The preceding is not legal advice.)
I don't think a quick reference is practical for something that is not only very complicated, but also to some extent a matter of personal preference.
For example, this quick reference puts into doubt whether "the community" (which community?!) likes to accept code under the GPL, and indicates that there is no problem accepting code under a BSD license.
IMO, it should be the other way around. GPL code is safe from an unscrupulous vendor doing what microsoft did to kerberos (use it, don't give anything back, and mess up interoperability for the people who originally wrote the code). The BSD license doesn't have such a protection, so I consider it unsafe, aka not popularly accepted.
You don't have to agree. That's the point: This is not something that can be summarized effectively in such a tiny little chart.
We're a research-department an we're not supposed to create real products. We're creating several source-analysis and documentation-management tools, which might be "sold" to other departments.
Commonly used OS-projects are e.g. xerces, boost, python and wxpython, where we usually only contribute bugreports or small patches.
Some tools use proprietary libraries that we must not redistribute as sourcecode. (e.g. a C++ backend from EDG) So if we want to call GPL programs (e.g. cvs or some source-documentation systems) we must not make proprietary extensions to it. It doesn't matter if we put the modified program under the GPL, it would still violate the license, because such an extension would be only usable with other non-GPL programs.
The sad thing is, that some people prefer to pay for inferior commercial sourcecode instead of contacting the original authors in order to come to an agreement.
Instead of documenting the subtle relations between dozens of different licenses (as someone suggested) we should try to encourage a personal contact to the developers. If the author allows you to use his code under certain conditions you don't even have to understand the original license.
IMHO the problem is that PHBs are afraid of such agreements, and as long as there's a different solution they don't want to try something new.
The creation of free AI is the one true threat to the survival of humanity (or will be once we get a few viable colonies off-planet); nothing else would hunt people into remote areas or through space. No preventative measure is too extreme.
You name would not happen to be Sarah Connor, would it?
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
> No im not trolling Yes, you are.
Though he makes an mistake. Even, if he releases it under GPL, he can still combine it with propriatrary source code. What he can not, it combine contributions by others with propriatary source, if they do not allow it. That's why I an perhaps many others are much more likely to contribute to an GPL-programm than to something else.
Apparently the only way to be safe against the accusation of having given "legal advice" is to write with such ambiguity and obfuscation that nobody can learn anything from what you've written
:P
Well from my experience the more complicated it looks, the more like legal advice it becomes!
And judging from the wars on this site, most of us write like this anyway
is here. I wrote it about 3 years ago, right about when ESR formed OSI. Best, Clark
Hi folks. The License Quick Ref is definitely a work in progress. I am no lawyer and there are a lot of question marks and probably a lot of inaccuracies or other bugs.
Please e-mail <zooko@zooko.com> with suggestions for improvement. Thanks!
If you send me flames, I may elect to post them to my web log. :-)
http://zooko.com/.
Regards,
Zooko
Kudos to Zooko for producing this, but I have to point out that if you didn't already know this stuff, you're not going to learn much of anything useful here because there's not enough basic introduction, and if you did already know it, you're not going to learn much of anything useful here, because there's not enough detail.
And what on earth is the point in posting your opinion on legal issues, then disclaiming that opinion as being worthless? Again, no disrespect to Zooko, but his opinion isn't worth any more than mine or yours.
Let's keep pressing for IAAL advice, or better yet, get some of these licenses tested in court, proactively and preemptively if necessary. I'd happily help fund a FSF case to have a declaratory decision made on the validity and limitations of the GPL.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Are we that hypocritical? Hey, this is /. - of course we are!
Black holes are where God divided by zero
Subsitute "building and exploding atomic bombs in major cities for fun" or "disemboweling children at random" for "creating a free AI" and then see if you would still dismiss anyone who uses phrases like "monstrous and evil" and argues that perpetrators and advocates alike should be killed. I consider the original to be far worse than either of these examples, though more subtly so.
(incidentally, I never suggested that "people opposed to [my] argument should be killed," only that people attempting or supporting attempts to destroy humanity should)
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You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
I fully agree with you, the BSD license is the closest to public domain, but then I don't really understand why you'd use the BSD license instead of public domain.
Anyone care to explain it?
How does an Apache-style license fit into this? Same as X11/BSD?
reech bee-yond ur clip-0n
I read your explaination of why the author chose questions that would show GPL as better. You've probably heard these arguments before but I thought I'd provide a personal example of why I think there might be better questions.
I'm a video game programmer. I think video game programmers are generally at the opposite extreme in terms of whether open source code is useful for game code development or not. Meaning for example it's clearly worked for OSes and for Web servers but it gets arguably gets less useful for apps and maybe even more for games. (I could explain this but I'm trying to keep this short)
Anyway, the point is, if you make the assumption that basically game companies will probably never GPL their game code for an inproduction game (vs tool code) then GPL code is NOT generally useful to commerical game programmers. So, in my personal example, if I wrote some cool 3D engine or quaterion code or collision code or physics engine and I GPLed it, most likely, none of my friends in the industry who are also commerical game developers could use my code to help their jobs, make their lives easier etc. If I BSDed it they can. AND most likely they can also contribute (most companies are not completely stupid) to BSD style but not to GPL.
So, although the author suggested the question "Can redistribute proprietary version" where *proprietary* is arguably the word GPL advocates see as bad, I would suggest one which I think they might find more palettable. "Is useful to ALL my programming friends" vs "Is useful only to friends that can GPL their code" or maybe even simpler, "can be used by ALL programmers" vs GPL which is "can only be used by programmers that can GPL their code". Since sharing code seems to be a major reason to open source code and since in my person situation, BSDing allows me to share with more people than GPL. I choose BSD style.
It's in this sense of wanting to help people, most of whom are not in a position to use GPL that I find BSD style more useful because it helps MORE people.
To get off that issue and directly into "anti" GPL stuff. I see GPL as kind of like volunteering to help the poor only if they promise to help you back where as BSD is just like real volunteering. You don't expect anything back except karma and good will. But, I also see that by real world example, people have contributed just fine to BSD style licensed projects (FreeBSD, Apache) so the arguement that you need to GPL your code to make sure you get other peoples contributions seems not really to hold up where as the arguement that GPLed code is useful to less people than FreeBSD code is arguably provable.
IANAL but I can't see any reason why a person couldn't put the same terms on his code as MS puts on its code that it releases under the shared source licence. Don't expect MS legal to back you up if there is a problem with the license but they can't really stop you from using those terms in a contract.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Sorry, but I don't take any post that uses phrases like "monstrous and evil" seriously, nor does suggesting that people opposed to your argument should be killed. If your not prepared to even listen to the opposing argument, you are irrational and should be ignored.
If your department "uses open-source projects as a basic part for in-house tools", why don't you give back to the community, you took from, and make your changes also available as open-source.
This way you would have not problems with GPL and the like. If it is "in-house", that you can hav more advantages by the community integrating and bettering your changes, than the possibility to sell something, which I guess as very low.
...I don't really understand why you'd use the BSD license instead of public domain. The BSD license includes a disclaimer of liability, so an author who releases software under it has some protection from suit. An author who releases into the public domain (arguments about whether that is possible with software aside) has no protection from suit. (The preceding is not legal advice.)
Good link.
Thanks for posting this.
You know, I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons for over 15 years and I can tell you the Player's Hand Book is confusing enough will all it's charts and tables. Added this chart will just frustrate DMs like myself when the players say "Look, that Dragon falls under the GNU GPL so it must share it's source of wealth!!"
So kill me if you must -- thereby putting me out of my misery as slavishly devoted to a do-or-die AI Project, but first I would like to raise the perhaps feeble argument that we human beings have a right to know exactly what we are and how we function as both minds and bodies.
As for your lead-in statement that you don't believe this project will succeed, think again, because it is not the admittedly amateurish AI source code propelling the AI Mind to success (i.e., proliferation), but rather the SourceForge/ Mind/ Docs/ Theory of Cognition that will inexorably introduce True Good Old Fashained AI (GOFAI) unless stopped by a nefarious military/government/Microsoft/_whatever_, because the Mentifex AI theory is the free, public-domain distillate of thirteen years of slavish agonizing over all possible roads to its now uniquely magisterial Theory of Mind -- and you can't stop an idea whose time has come.
If the U.S. or other military does take over an Open Source AI Mind project, they are not going to announc it to the world here on Slashdot. They are going to pick a place like Los Alamos, New Mexico, and develope the End-Of-Humanity in secret. The only way to thwart the forces of evil is to let _them_ sweat a lot about who _else_ has the plans for the Superintelligence.
It has been pointed out that the GPL won't protect your program from beiing modified in such a way that makes the program unsafe.
However, the GPL requires the author to include the source of the program when distributing his code, which makes it much easier to determine what has been done to the code if it is changed and redistributed.
The community he is referring to does not consist solely of the Linux and GNU communities. He is referring to the Open Source community at large. That community includes XFree86 developers, BSD developers, Apache developers, Perl and Python developers, etc., etc. The GPL is accepted by the community as a valid and useful standard for copyleft-style licenses. But it is not universally accepted as a Good Thing(tm). You may disagree, but you are not the community, only a very small part of it.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
You should have an automated test suite with examples that check to see if they have been correctly calculated. Every time a bug is found you should add a check to your test suite for it.
[assuming you are concerned about changes to Python]
You state with your program that it has been verified to run with Python version foo.
You should warn that versions of Python other than foo may break your program and it should be fully tested before deployement.
You personally check against your test suite.
[assuming you are concerned about updates to your code breaking it]
1: don't incorporate patches unless you know they are safe for use.
2: verify patches against the test suite you built earlier before accepting.
You have no protection against someone forking your code and making a competing product with it, however, you also aren't liable if the competing product screws up since you don't sell / support / acknowledge it.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain
You seem to have a strong opinion in favor of the GPL and, from what I can determine, it looks like a fantastic concept that is applicable to more than just computer code. However, I am somewhat inexperienced with open licenses and have a few questions as I consider publishing software that I am currently developing. Short story is as follows, the program I'm working on is being coded in Python (latest GPL OK version). It is designed for accessing damage and/or fatigue life for aging commercial aircraft. The math engine is developed by myself and I'd like to make it available to other experts in the field so that it can grow. I would also like input from experienced programmers since I am self taught (this is in fact my first Python program). On the other hand, I need to keep that math model under tight control. I am concerned that someone who is a good programmer but not experienced in aircraft fatigue my modify the math engine in such a way as to make it unsafe for use. Can the GPL protect from this scenario?
A goal is a dream with a deadline
...Other than that, these licenses are too restrictive, except maybe for BSD and X licenses. They may bring a feeling of assurance to developers, but users do suffer.
That's a common misconception. As long as the user does not mess with the source, the GPL has no effect (except, of course, that the software is freely redistributable). These things only rear their heads if you want to modify the source. Users are not affected.
The irritating thing is that M$ are using this argument against using GPL'ed software vs their own. As long as you only use the software, not modify it, the GPL does not affect you - and it certainly doesn't harm your IP. That's only if you modify the software, which you couldn't even *do* with proprietary licences of M$ Shared Source.
Exactly when did the Soviets destroy the West? I must have missed that.
I guess all their preparations were for nothing...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
Guess I'm not elitist enough for this site.
Maybe it would be good to add the APL which I think is close to a BSD style license.
BTW, to have an idea about what APL developpers think about GPL (LPGL in fact) just have look here it's an excerpt from a discussion where the integration of GNU Regexp was seriouly discussed in cocoon-dev mailing list.
That table mixes the subjective and objective deftly, and is as of as much value as the following beer (not free) comparison:
/. wahoo!
CONTAINS HOPS CONTAINS WATER TASTES GREAT
Bud______Y________________Y____________N
Coors____Y________________Y____________N1
Bass_____?2_______________Y____________Y
1) Some people in the community think Coors tastes great, but considering this is subjective bullshit it doesn't matter.
2) Bass is an 'ale' not a 'lager' like Bud and Coors, and I don't know enough about beer to know if 'ale' contains 'hops.' I know there are 'bugs' in this list (in other words I have little clue as to what I'm talking about and I hope people who do have a clue fill in the blanks for me) but my stupid little occasionally accurate matrix of text made it on
I have a feeling showing that table to your PHB might give your PHB more clue about YOU than open source code and the associated licenses that a real PHB couldn't care less about. Remember to post a "I got laid off, now what?" 'ask slashdot' request in hope you'll get more brilliant advice.
AC's cheerfully ignored
I've read it before, looking for stuff on Forth. 13 years of work by one crackpot doesn't amount to much. I bet Alex Chiu's been working that long on his theories, too.
Crackpots are very common when it comes to the topic of free AIs. I find this a very reassuring thought.
we human beings have a right to know exactly what we are and how we function as both minds and bodies.
The hand cannot grasp itself. There is no way for a human brain to know exactly how a human brain functions. Feeble indeed.
Besides, building an AI doesn't mean you've figured how the human mind works. There are probably many ways to create intelligence.
You are insane, but harmless. You will probably die bitterly disappointed in your life if you continue pursuing your crackpot theory (if you think you feel bad about the 13 years you've spend, imagine how you will feel when it's 50 years, and still no real progress in the working model). You should see a psychiatrist, as you are clearly paranoid and megalomaniacal.
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You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
*Prepared* to destroy...
They didn't, but that was largely because they'd have been destroyed as well.
The USA was fairly close, after WW2, to making a bunch more nukes and carrying the war to the soviets. They were stopped partially because they couldn't afford the manpower to actually hold the country once it had been broken.
The USSR was fairly obviously looking to become the only superpower, and that would have been most quickly accomplished by destroying the USA.
Why do you think they didn't?
You may not like this, but war is a fact of life. As long as someone else desires violence, or is willing to use violence to get what they want, you have to be prepared to match them, or there's nothing stopping them.
Having an army, and building weapons of aggression, is required, unless you are so confident of your strength that you can rely 100% on defensive weapons. Do you want to risk your life on a missile defense system?
Checkout the CPL license on IBM's page, it protects against people from being abuse by often evil patents.
A problem the GPL _doesnt_ address and one that could be a major long term problem for free software.
No im not trolling
Yes, how you used Bruce Perens as a source for BSD licencing information. At least your level of competancy improved.
What we really need is an answer to the question: "Which licenses scare MS?" If they don't stop at least MS from appropriating the software, then what use is such an OS license?
He seems to be unsure whether "the community" likes to accept code under the GPL. If he means the business community, maybe I can understand his uncertainty, but I thought he meant the hacker community.
He actually stated "a hypothetical open source/free software hacker may prefer to create source code under the GPL, but may prefer to use source code licensed to her under a license that permits her to combine the licensed source code with proprietary source code." Are we that hypocritical?
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Woops I only read the first half of the article..
Isn't limited use of code allowed by MS's shared source, or does that license just buy one the right to view?
"Even the Devil can quote scripture to suit his purposes" - William Shakespeare
Find free books.
this will be great for my phb. he loves anything with ascii text but with 500 line footnotes. * this is only a hemos dis cuz he added that part.
Is it appropriate to select a copyright version based upon whether the community accepts it more readily, or whether the specific copyright is more appropriate for the type software...
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
...kind of like all those people who were protesting nuclear weapons in the U.S. while the U.S.S.R. was unashamedly preparing to destroy the West.
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
I don't see MS's shared source licensing in the comparison..
"Even the Devil can quote scripture to suit his purposes" - William Shakespeare
These licenses are for sissies. Real men either release their work under public domain or charge for binaries.
I have a couple of projects I'm thinking of making available to the public, and the only reason I see to release under, say, the GPL is that I feel deeply indebted to the FSF and others who contributed to free software. Other than that, these licenses are too restrictive, except maybe for BSD and X licenses. They may bring a feeling of assurance to developers, but users do suffer.
I like the idea behind the chart though. Choosing a license is a personal thing, and after all, it's the developer's right to do what (s)he will with their own code isn't it? A simple chart like this should help people make a more informed choice.
It would be nice if it included a few more licenses though; there are what? Maybe 30 or more? Anyone have a list to send this guy?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
07/Aug/2001:07:22:58 - pentagon.mil - /~mentifex/jsaimind.html /~mentifex/aisource.html /~mentifex/jsaimind.html /~mentifex/index.html /~mentifex/ /~mentifex/aisource.html /~mentifex/aisource.html
07/Aug/2001:14:44:12 - af.mil -
07/Aug/2001:14:44:16 - af.mil -
07/Aug/2001:14:48:19 - af.mil -
08/Aug/2001:11:21:48 - army.mil -
08/Aug/2001:11:22:02 - army.mil -
08/Aug/2001:22:18:15 - nosc.mil -
Check this out:
Peter Lowe has written an interactive version of the License Quick Ref which shows you the table in a way that reflects your own biases. Ha!
http://yoyo.org/~pgl/lqr/
Regards,
Zooko
P.S. Despite my fears of massive slashdot flamage, there has actually been pretty much no flames, except for one from a certain unnamed Linux world journalist. Maybe the community is growing up! After all, Linux itself is 10 years old, so the first generation of Linux hackers are now in their late 20's at least.
...I must state my opinion that its goals are monstrous and evil.
An attempt to create a general purpose artificial intelligence -- and specifically one which is more intelligent than any human AND one intended to be loaded into robots! -- which acts from self-interest, rather than to fulfill some specific function, is nothing less than an attempt to destroy humanity.
People who make this attempt should be killed, and their work destroyed. Collaborators should be killed, sympathizers should be killed. It is unclear whether it is wiser to do it publicly, to discourage attempts, or covertly, to keep attempts public and make them easier to catch.
The creation of free AI is the one true threat to the survival of humanity (or will be once we get a few viable colonies off-planet); nothing else would hunt people into remote areas or through space. No preventative measure is too extreme.
This is not a joke, this is not a troll. True artificial intelligence should only be approached with the greatest caution, in a carefully contained environment, by people who take the threat seriously and who are ready to abandon it and destroy their work at the first sign of danger. The idea of rights for an AI should never be seriously considered. Perhaps the only justifiable purpose of creating an AI would be to destroy other AIs, and the potential problems are obvious.
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You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.
As for like, well, I never dis-liked. You screwed up and got nailed to the wall for it.
So you're telling me we should all be willing to listen to and debate with someone on the merits of his attempts to disembowel children, and anyone who simply judges him as evil should be disregarded as irrational.
Don't be an ass. Not everything is a debate.
Of course it makes no sense for people I judge to be monstrous and evil to argue with me over my belief. I'm not interested in debating with them, I'm interested in stopping them. I don't write to communicate with them, but to communicate with others who share my belief, or might be persuaded to. It's a call to arms, and strong language is appropriate.
Not every communication is a logical argument, meant to persuade impartial judges. Assertion of one's belief is neither logical argument nor logical fallacy, it is a statement of fact about oneself.
I'm not interested in arguing over whether a free AI would destroy humanity. That is not something we can know until it is done. It is enough that a free, superior AI would have humanity at its mercy, that it would be the introduction of a totally unnecessary, totally avoidable threat.
Others do not value humanity so highly; they consider any intelligence their equal kindred. There is no logical argument against that, you must simply judge for yourself whether you stand with them or against them. There are no moderates: you either find the extinction of humanity acceptable in some avoidable situation, or you don't.
I don't, and I won't sit and listen to people plot the annihilation of the human race without at least stating my unequivocal objection.
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You'd be surprised at the broadband connection available to things crawling around in your hair.