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In computing, software that is copyrighted and licensed under a software license is done so principally under two general licensing schemes, open source and closed source. Within these schemes are further classifications.
Not all software is licensed, or even copyrighted, and this article is thus not an exhaustive list of the terms under which software is available. Software may be published without an accompanying license, as License-Free Software, in which case it remains copyrighted, its distribution is subject to ordinary copyright law, and its sale is subject to ordinary sales law. Software may also be released to the public domain, in which case it is not copyrighted and the notion of a copyright license simply does not apply at all (although the other parts of a software licence, including warranty provisions, will still apply to the sale of such software).
Open source licenses
Open source licenses are commonly grouped under "free software", defined by the GNU organization, and other general open source licenses which may or may not be considered "free". The Open Source Initiative generally determines whether licenses are considered "open" or not.
Free software licenses
GPL compatible
The GNU GPL is a popular license, with offerings includig Linux, that it is useful to know if the license choosen is compatible with it. Knowing compatibility is important if a developer wants to avail his or herself of the wide GPL software 'commons'.
A list of GPL compatible licenses:
- Artistic License 2.0
- Berkeley Database License (aka the Sleepycat Software Product License)
- Boost Software License
- Clarified Artistic License
- Cryptix General License
- eCos license version 2.0
- Eiffel Forum License, version 2
- Expat License.
- Intel Open Source License (as published by OSI)
- LGPL / GNU Lesser General Public License
- License of Guile
- License of Netscape Javascript
- License of Perl
- License of Python 1.6a2 and earlier versions
- License of Python 2.0.1, 2.1.1, and newer versions
- License of the iMatix Standard Function Library
- License of the run-time units of the GNU Ada compiler
- License of Vim, Version 6.1 or later
- zlib license
- Modified BSD license
- OpenLDAP License, Version 2.7
- Public Domain
- Standard ML of New Jersey Copyright License
- W3C Software Notice and License
- X11 license
- Zope Public License version 2.0
GPL incompatible
The GPL has certain special requirements that make code under licenses incompatible (that is, cannot be consequently licensed under) the GPL.
- Academic Free License, version 1.1
- Affero General Public License
- Apache License, Version 1.0
- Apache License, Version 1.1
- Apache Software License, version 2.0
- Apple Public Source License (APSL), version 2
- Arphic Public License
- Common Public License Version 1.0
- IBM Public License, Version 1.0
- Interbase Public License, Version 1.0
- Jabber Open Source License, Version 1.0
- LaTeX Project Public License
- License of Python 1.6b1 and later versions, through 2.0 and 2.1
- License of xinetd
- Mozilla Public License (MPL)
- Netizen Open Source License (NOSL), Version 1.0
- Netscape Public License (NPL)
- Nokia Open Source License
- Old OpenLDAP License, Version 2.3
- Open Software License, version 1.0
- OpenSSL license
- Original BSD license
- Phorum License, Version 2.0
- PHP License, Version 3.0
- Plan 9 License as of June 2003
- Q Public License (QPL), Version 1.0
- Sun Industry Standards Source License 1.0
- Sun Public License
- Vita Nuova Liberal Source License
- XFree86 1.1 License
- Zend License, Version 2.0
- Zope Public License version 1
Closed source
Free Licensed Closed Source
- Free Solaris Binary License
Pay Licensed Viewable Source
- Microsoft's "Shared Source"
Pay Licensed Closed Source
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