Mattermost team edition server offered under an mit license. To apply the apache license to your work, attach the following boilerplate notice, with the fields enclosed by brackets replaced with your own identifying information. Difference between different types of open sources licenses. All in all, the most acknowledged business friendly license are imho the apache license, the artistic license and the mozilla public license. Open source licenses are licenses that comply with the open source definition in brief, they allow software to be freely used, modified, and shared. If you receive software under an open source license, you can always use that software for commercial purposes, but that doesnt always mean you can place further restrictions on people who receive the software from you. Yet, many foss licenses, like the apache license, and all free software licenses allow. The following licenses are sorted by the number of conditions, from most gnu agplv3 to none unlicense. In all cases, there is a file named license in the toplevel of the release. The lgpl on the other hand has the requirement that either the lgpl library links dynamically and can be replaced by a user or the entire work must be released under a gplcompatible opensource license. The language about what constitutes commercial is a bit vague no express definition is provided, so.
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files the software, to deal in the software without restriction, including wit. And if youre not making available a competing saas product as described in the exclusion, you can use 5. The code contains a standard apache license header which refers to the standard apache license in the distribution. What happens if you use agpl software, but deploy it as a different application that your closedsource commercial one. Can i use an open source library licensed under apache. Asuncion2, and walt scacchi1 1institute for software research. Open source licenses grant permission for anybody to use, modify, and share licensed software for any purpose, subject to conditions preserving the provenance and openness of the software. The apache software foundation uses various licenses to distribute software and documentation, to accept regular contributions from individuals and corporations, and to accept larger grants of existing software products. Frequently answered questions open source initiative. And of course, our new release doesnt affect the licensing for apache kafka at all.
Describes the ability to modify the software and create derivatives. It also contains a patent license and retaliation clause which is designed to prevent patents including patent trolls from encumbering the software project. Corporatefriendly open source licenses stack overflow. You must also not use any of the apache marks like the multicolored. Frequently asked questions about the gnu licenses gnu. This page is maintained by the free software foundations licensing and compliance lab. Software licenses, open source components, and open architectures thomas a.
The case with mongodb is that it uses apache license for the client code, which poses another question. This detailed guide gives you an effective open source licenses comparison. This page is dedicated to providing descriptions of those offerings and links to more information. Comparison of free and opensource software licenses. So, youre working on that cool new project for a while and youre ready now to make the critical move from closed source to open source. The apache license is a permissive free software license written by the apache software foundation asf. When uploading an article you need to be aware of the risks and legal issues involved. The wordiness creates greater specificity about contributors obligations, which might help in a dispute.
For nonlicensing questions, please see our general faq. Openssl is covered by one of two licenses, depending on which release is involved. However, you must not name your product in a way that it looks like an endorsement from apache. Furthermore, even if creative commons is not widely used for software development, some options are business friendly. Tldrlegal software licenses explained in plain english. Software licenses, open source components, and open. Mattermost ios and android applications offered under apache license v2. It allows users to use the software for any purpose, to distribute it, to modify it, and to distribute modified versions of the software under the terms of the license, without concern for royalties.
Kafka is an apache software foundation project, and therefore remains under the apache 2. Sell software that uses libraries licensed under apache. The following licenses are sorted by the number of conditions, from most gnu agplv3 to. Instead, you license the software from the publisher. Bsd licenses represent a family of permissive free software licenses that have fewer restrictions on distribution compared to other free software licenses such as the gnu general public license. The terms state that users cant remove existing, patent, trademarks and attribution notices. Mattermost licensing open source software licensing. The apache license is a permissive open source software license so you can release your modified version of the apache licensed product under any license of your choice. If its worth money to you its important to get your licensing right.
After that you have the no competing commercial product licenses. The apache license does not place any restrictions on software that links to a plugin or library that is distributed under the apache license. This sort of license configuration, in which the rights to a. We live in a litigious world so you need to protect yourself against those seeking damages against you for problems that may or may not have been caused by your article.
With open source licenses explained here, it should help you choose the right open source license for your project. Code developed elsewhere, licensed to apache under a software grant agreement, incorporated into apache projects, distributed by apache, and licensed to downstream users under the apache license. Mattermost enterprise edition server please see commercial enterprise edition license. Describes the warranty and if the software license owner can be charged for damages. Use of these trademarks is subject to the terms of section 6 of apache license, version 2.
The mpl fills a useful space in the spectrum of free and open source software licenses, sitting between the apache license, which does not require modifications to be shared, and the gnu family of licenses, which requires modifications to be shared under a much broader set of circumstances than the mpl. The commons clause is a license condition drafted by heather meeker that applies a narrow, minimalform commercial restriction on top of an existing open source license to transition the project to a sourceavailability licensing scheme. Subject to the terms and conditions of this license, each contributor hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide, nonexclusive, nocharge, royaltyfree, irrevocable except as stated in this section patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the work, where such license applies only to those. Is there any difference in what i have to do to legaly use the material in my commercial product. It is descriptive guidance, and does not supplant or otherwise modify any of the terms within the license itself. Several companies have built products and services around the apache directory project. Describes the ability to use the software for commercial purposes. Sell software that uses libraries licensed under apache licence 2. The definition of legal entity in the apache license 2. This page answers most of the common queries that we receive about our licenses, licensing of our software, and packaging or redistributing of our software.
If you create a product that uses apache tomcat software or provides additional functionality to that software then. These licenses help us achieve our goal of providing reliable and longlived software products through collaborative open source software development. Bsd license is a part of a family of free software licenses that have much fewer restrictions in distribution as compared to other free software licenses. The font will be included as texture in a modified form with some decorations. The apache license has a similar philosophy to the mit, but uses more words. A short guide to open source licenses smashing magazine.
Can you use software under mit licence for commercial use. However, note that commercial is not the same as proprietary. Lookup popular software licenses summarized ataglance. You can freely use, modify, distribute and sell a software licensed under the apache license without worrying about the use of software. Choosing an open source software license for your development project by ryan boudreaux in web designer, in developer on july 24, 20, 2. When referring to apache tomcat software, please use the full name of apache tomcat for at. Why are the license files for the different apache software foundation projects different. The apache license says do whatever you want with this, just dont sue me but does so with many more words, which lawyers like because it adds specificity.