Open Source Licensing Protocol

[description]: This digest from the June 2008 issue of the "programmer" Xu Hongbo "open source Licensing Agreement (License)," the article, copyright belongs to the original author.

1, OSI (www.opensource.org) is currently the world's Open source software licensing certification of the only organization.

2, the characteristics of open source software:

Free redistribution: Software licensees must allow, including software winners and users, to redistribute the software to others without paying royalties to the owner of the copyright.

Source code access: Source code is required for open source authorization.

Derivative works: Authorization must allow the user to modify the software and make innovative work on its basis. Authorization must allow these modifications and derivative works to be published under the same conditions as the original software copyright.

Eliminate discrimination: Everyone can use open source software as long as they comply with open source licensing rights, and the copyright of open source software does not restrict anyone from using the software in a particular domain.

3, open source licensing mode:

(1) strong open source constraint authorized--gnu GPL. Any software or derivative application based on the GPL must be made public and shall not be charged.

(2) Weak open source constraint authorization--mozilla public Authorization (MPL) and LGPL. The MPL protocol requires that if you modify a source code based on the MPL protocol, you must include or disclose the changes you have made. If your software uses LGPL open source software, LGPL requires any modification of LGPL open source software to expose its source code, but it does not require that the source code be open to derivative applications based on the source code.

(3) No open source constraint authorization--bsd authorization agreement. BSD allows users to do almost anything they want to do with the BSD authorization code; they can also use the software for free or commercial purposes; they can also publish or not publish the changed source code. BSD's only requirement is that software users declare that they use the copyright of the original author of the software.

(4) Other open source authorization.