Thread: Good F/OSS license summary
Folks-
A recent thread ( http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-general/2008-01/msg01595.php ) suggests that there's a lot of interest and knowledge about F/OSS licenses on this list. So...
Does anyone know of an authoritative, complete, and current license comparison? After a lot of trolling, I've been able to satisfy one or two of those criteria, but not all.
-*-mode:opinion-*-
It's disappointing that we as a community have yet to converge on just a few licenses that differ only by the few characteristics that *really* matter (e.g., virality, commercializability, code reciprocation/share-alike, etc). The glut of license options and license compatibility issues create enormous confusion and even some unfortunate internecine FUD -- never mind the real uncertainty caused by the lack of case law in this area. I long for a Creative Commons-like family of licenses for code.
Thanks,
Reece
A recent thread ( http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-general/2008-01/msg01595.php ) suggests that there's a lot of interest and knowledge about F/OSS licenses on this list. So...
Does anyone know of an authoritative, complete, and current license comparison? After a lot of trolling, I've been able to satisfy one or two of those criteria, but not all.
-*-mode:opinion-*-
It's disappointing that we as a community have yet to converge on just a few licenses that differ only by the few characteristics that *really* matter (e.g., virality, commercializability, code reciprocation/share-alike, etc). The glut of license options and license compatibility issues create enormous confusion and even some unfortunate internecine FUD -- never mind the real uncertainty caused by the lack of case law in this area. I long for a Creative Commons-like family of licenses for code.
Thanks,
Reece
-- Reece Hart, http://harts.net/reece/, GPG:0x25EC91A0 |
On Feb 1, 2008, at 11:17 AM, Reece Hart wrote: > Folks- > > A recent thread ( http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-general/2008-01/msg01595.php > ) suggests that there's a lot of interest and knowledge about F/OSS > licenses on this list. So... > > Does anyone know of an authoritative, complete, and current license > comparison? After a lot of trolling, I've been able to satisfy one > or two of those criteria, but not all. There is no such thing as a complete list of license comparisons. JFGI leads to a lot of obvious links, but http://freshmeat.net/faq/view/48/ is one of the more useful lists. Cheers, Steve
On Fri, Feb 01, 2008 at 11:17:19AM -0800, Reece Hart wrote: > > Does anyone know of an authoritative, complete, and current license > comparison? After a lot of trolling, I've been able to satisfy one or > two of those criteria, but not all. The FSF has maintained a list of many licenses for years. It's at <http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/>. Certified Open Source Initiative licenses are listed at <http://opensource.org/licenses>. I think those are the two main resources for this topic. > It's disappointing that we as a community have yet to converge on just a > few licenses that differ only by the few characteristics that *really* > matter (e.g., virality, commercializability, code Your problem in the above is that your definitions of "community" and "really matter" may not be congruent with others'. A
On Fri, 1 Feb 2008, Reece Hart wrote: > Does anyone know of an authoritative, complete, and current license > comparison? One of the better ones is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_software_licences but it's far from complete. -- * Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD