There are a large number of Free-Libre / Open Source Software (FLOSS) licenses, but only a few are widely used. The widely-used licenses tend to be compatible, i.e., the software can be combined to produce a larger work. The following “license slide” figure makes it easy to see when common licenses can be combined:
FOSS funding, co-operation, and the Digital Life Collective
Free open-source software (FOSS) is the bedrock of our digital world. This is a story about getting funding for FOSS engineering…
Licenses – Open Source Initiative
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Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FOSS, or FLOSS)? Look at the Numbers!
This paper provides quantitative data that, in many cases, open source software / free software is equal to or superior to their proprietary competition. The paper examines market share, reliability, performance, scalability, scaleability, security, and total cost of ownership; it also comments on non-quantitative issues and unnecessary fears.
Sorting out the Ethical Licensing Mess
Software developers who give the world, for free, usage rights to the code they write often use open source licenses to make this gift legally explicit. These free usage rights (and then some) are …
(Starts at 6pm GMT) Uncaring Software - tante
What unites all FLOSS licences? Their negation of care and responsibility. "NO WARRANTY", they say in capital letters. But what if this (originally merely a legal precaution) has cast a way longer shadow than we thought? What is FLOSS software, if not a work of care? Maybe "FLOSS" isn't what we thought it was? ATTENDING Open to anyone, technical or not, whether a free software expert or newbie. Just follow this videocall link [https://meet.floxford.org/]; no registration required! SHARING We welcome you to share this page, our Mastodon/Fediverse post [https://mastodon.me.uk/@floxford/117575096087694308], and/or our Bluesky/ATProto post [https://bsky.app/profile/floxford.org/post/3mzpunnnr7i32]. SPEAKER BIO tante/Jürgen Geuter [https://tante.cc] studied computer science and philosophy at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg [https://uol.de/en/] and worked there for a while as a researcher and teacher. After working for a few years as project manager and consultant for a software company working on industrial maintenance and production systems, he now works as the Research Director for the spatial new media studio ART+COM [https://artcom.de] in Berlin. Besides his work in and with tech he’s been a writer and freelance consultant since the beginning of the 2000s writing about the social, political and structural impact of the way tech is implemented, conceptualized and talked about starting with issues around privacy and data usage and work on “AI”. In 2018 he was a founding member of the interdisciplinary Otherwise Network [https://ownw.de]. In recent years he’s been known for his work on criticism of technological hypes and their reception and built-in politics for example on Blockchain/Web3, Metaverse and “AI”. ATTRIBUTION Bio modified from https://tante.cc/about/ [https://tante.cc/about/], CC-BY-SA-4.0 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode] tante (Jürgen Geuter). Cover Photo: Hands modified from "Abramowski-braterstwo-solidarnosc-wspoldzialanie-okladka.png" [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abramowski-braterstwo-solidarnosc-wspoldzialanie-okladka.png], CC-BY-SA-3.0-PL [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/pl/deed.en] © Magda Warszawa via Wikimedia Commons. Uncopyrightable quantities of text in background from MIT, GPL-3.0, MPL-2.0, new and old BSD licences.
Licenses List - Creative Commons
Creative Commons is the nonprofit behind the open licenses and other legal tools that allow creators to share their work. Our legal tools are free to use.
Licenses List - Creative Commons
Creative Commons is the nonprofit behind the open licenses and other legal tools that allow creators to share their work. Our legal tools are free to use.
The Great Open Source Shake-up
The past year and a half has seen a number of open source and open source-ish companies like Elastic, Confluent, and MongoDB change licenses on certain products, moving away from traditional open s…
Solving the Commercial Open Source Licensing Dilemma With Triple-Licensing
As you may have noticed, the move away from approved open source licenses to commercial almost-like-open-source licenses by single-vendor-owned open source projects has created a lot of bad press f…
Everything an open source maintainer might need to know about open source licensing | Ben Balter
There's lots of internet lore around open source licensing. An attorney and open source developer answers the most common questions.
Time for Net Giants to Pay Fairly for the Open Source on Which They Depend | Linux Journal
Licensing lies at the heart of open source. Arguably, free software began with the publication of the GNU GPL in 1989. And since then, open-source projects are defined as such by virtue of the licenses they adopt and whether the latter meet the Open Source Definition. The continuing importance of licensing is shown by the periodic flame wars that erupt in this area. Recently, there have been two such flarings of strong feelings, both of which raise important issues.
When Free Software Isn't (Practically) Superior - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
The Open Source Initiative's mission statement reads, “Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.”
