GNU Licenses Using Creative Commons and Open Software Licenses Guides at University of Pittsburgh

The License terms were rewritten to attempt to ensure that international laws will interpret the license as FSF intends. If you'd like to advertise your use of a particular license,feel free to use one of our logos. If you might be interested in joining up with theGNU Project in this way, please see our GNU software evaluation page for moreinformation and a short questionnaire. It is also possible to make your program a GNU package, a part of theGNU Project.
We would like to list all free software programs in the FreeSoftware Directory, including all programs licensed under the GPL (anyversion). If you have copied code from other programs covered by the samelicense, copy their copyright notices too. Ifthe developer is refusing users patent licenses, the program is ineffect a trap for users and users should avoid the program. If that is not possible for anyreason, CC0 also provides a lax, permissive license as a fallback.Both public domain works and the lax license provided by CC0 arecompatible with the GNU GPL.

Various Licenses and Comments about Them

Our comments there apply here as well; this is aGPL-incompatible, partial copyleft free software license. It is a non-copyleft freesoftware license which is incompatible with the GNU GPL, and has practical problemslike those of the original BSD license. This is a free software license, not a strong copyleft, which isincompatible with the GNU GPL because of details rather than anymajor policy. This is a non-copyleft free software license which is incompatible withthe GNU GPL. The combination results in a copyleft free softwarelicense that is incompatible with the GNU GPL.

  • GPLv3 also permits developers to add local disclaimers to account for variations in national copyright laws.
  • For substantial programs it is better to use the Apache 2.0 licensesince it blocks patent treachery.
  • With this facility, therequirement is merely annoying; without the facility, the samerequirement would be a serious obstacle, and we would have to concludeit makes the program nonfree.
  • A free software license may not arbitrarily deny use of the program to anyone.
  • CC0 is a public domain dedication from Creative Commons.
  • The “Commons Clause” is a nonfree license because itforbids selling copies of the program, and even running the program aspart of implementing any commercial service.
  • The purpose of a free software license is to give certain rights toall users of a program.

Licenses For Documentation

Section 9.4 of the CeCILL commits the program's developers to certainforms of cooperation with the users, if someone attacks the programwith a patent. The X11 license and the modified BSD license aremore or less equivalent. To avoid this risk, you can suggest the X11 licenseinstead.

Licenses for Other Works

This is the license used throughout the GNU and FSF web sites.This license provides much the same permissions as our verbatimcopying license, but it's much more detailed. This was the license used throughout the GNU web site for manyyears. Works that express someone's opinion—memoirs, editorials, andso on—serve a fundamentally different purpose than works forpractical use like software and documentation. Neither we nor SILrecommend the use of this license for anything other thanfonts.

  • The Unicode Terms of Use, adifferent, nonfree license does not provide clear guidelines whether aparticular file is subject to any additional restrictions.
  • If you have copied code from other programs covered by the samelicense, copy their copyright notices too.
  • Its terms effectivelyconsist of the terms of GPLv3, with an additional paragraph in section 13to allow users who interact with the licensed software over a network toreceive the source for that program.
  • This is a permissive non-copyleft free software license with a fewrequirements (in sections 4 and 5) that render it incompatible withthe GNU GPL.
  • In other words, when you make a combination thisway, the files that were originally under the MPL will be duallicensed under the MPL and the GNU license(s).

Versioning

The following licensesare free software licenses, butare notcompatible with the GNU GPL. If you want a lax permissivelicense for a small program, we recommendthe X11 license. The license does provide the ability to licensepatents along with the software work, however, we still recommend theApache 2.0 license for avoiding patent treachery when choosing to putyour work under a lax license. betory casino bonus Ifyou want to use a lax permissive license for your project, please useExpat license for a small program and the Apache2.0 license for a substantial program.
This is a lax, permissive non-copyleft free software license,compatible with the GNU GPL. The patent termination provision is a good thing, whichis why we recommend the Apache 2.0 license for substantial programsover other lax permissive licenses. One of the reasons that FSF released GPLv3, is an attempt to clarify what constitutions a "work based on another work" which triggers the licenses copyleft obligations to share the new software under the terms of the GPLv3 license.

We have not written a full analysis of this license, but it is a freesoftware license, with less stringent requirements on distribution thanLPPL 1.2 (described next). (Of course, any program ispotentially threatened by patents, and the only way to end that is tochange patent law to make software safe from patents.) It has a special danger in the form of a term expressly stating itdoes not grant you any patent licenses, with an invitation to buysome. It also, indirectly, allows relicensing to GPLversion 3 or any later version, because there is a way to relicenseto the CeCILL v2, and the CeCILL v2 gives a way to relicense to anyversion of the GNU GPL.

This is a copyleft free software license, incompatible with theGPL. This is a free and copyleft license meant for general data.Please don't use it for software or documentation, since it isincompatible with the GNU GPL and with the GNU FDL; however, it isfine to use for other kinds of data. This license does not qualify as free, because there arerestrictions on distributing modified versions. It is a copyleft free documentation licenseprovided the copyright holder does not exercise any ofthe “LICENSE OPTIONS” listed in Section VI of the license.But if either of the options is invoked, the license becomesnonfree.