Software License Analysis

The value of software can only be reflected by intellectual property rights. According to the general rules of intellectual property rights: such value is to grant the right holder a certain proprietary right through law, and then use the right to use the license agreementWith the same system, software enterprises can share their achievements with others and the public. At the same time, software enterprises can withdraw their initial development and other investments, continue to develop, upgrade and launch new products, and obtainProfit. In the end, a virtuous circle will be formed to promote industrial and economic development. Commercial software and open-source software (Free Software), in the sense of copyright law, mainly because they use different licenses for circulation mechanisms. The software can be roughly dividedCommercial software, open-source software (Free Software), and shared software.

 

Commercial software license Analysis

To a certain extent, software license fees are an important way for software to realize its economic value. Through software license fee, commercial software enterprises can reclaim costs and obtain benefitsAnd continue to develop new products, or constantly improve the performance and quality of software, forming a virtuous circle. In the face of various market demands, enterprises not only need to develop various software products, but also provide variousSoftware Technology Services, and forced enterprises to use various licenses and prices for competition, thus forming a dynamic software market and evolving industry.

● Commercial software licenses generally define the copyright ownership and legal rights of the licensor, and fully guarantee the rights and interests of software developers.
● Commercial software generally provides defect guarantees and defaults.
● Commercial software licenses provide different texts for different environments and licensee (user.
● More and more commercial software licenses include technical services such as installation, training, Operation Support, troubleshooting maintenance, and version upgrade. Specify who is responsible for providing services, Whether to charge, that is, whether the technical service fee is included in the license fee, or you need to charge separately.

 

Open source software license Analysis

"Open-source software" is derived from "Free Software". The main difference between "open-source software" and "Free Software" is that the definition angle is different. Open source software For "PublicSource codeSoftware) is a definition at the technical level, that is, the sourceCodeIs public. "Free Software" is defined at the level of intellectual property license, that is, licensed people can obtain a large degree Free.
The foundation of Open Source Software (Free Software) is still copyright law, and open source software (Free Software) is still copyrighted.
The basic difference between open-source software and traditional commercial software is that the two licenses may be different in different ways.
Currently, the number of software licenses for Open-Source Software certified by Osia has increased to more than 60 ( Http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical ). In common open-source Protocols such as BSD,
GPL, lgpl, MIT and so on are all OSI-approved protocols. If you want to open up your own code, it is best to select these approved Open Source protocols.
According to the definition of open source code (the Open Source Definition) of the open source code initiative, the organization has the following criteria for identifying open source software and licenses: Surface:
● Freedom of publishing
● Requirements on source code
● About deductive works
● Integrity of source code
● Do not discriminate against any individual or group
● No discrimination against any application field
● Release of licenses
● AboutProgramPart
● The license shall not affect other software

Typical Open Source software license Analysis

BSD license
Compared with other open-source software licenses, especially GPL licenses, BSD (berkly Software Distribution) licenses may be the most "tolerant" for licensee, althoughThe BSD license meets the general requirements for open source software licenses, but the BSD license only requires the licensee to attach the original document of the license and the copyright information of all developers. In layman's terms,BSD licenses focus on "names". In terms of "benefits", BSD licenses give licensee full access to (including commercial use) source code.

BSD licenses do not generate "virus effects" like GPL licenses at all. They are open-source software, especially open-source software that serves as scientific research achievements of schools and public research institutions, and are converted into products.And so on.

GPL license
The GPL license is one of the open source software licenses of the Free Software Alliance GNU. It is one of the most prestigious open source software licenses.The software field imposes the strictest restrictions on licensee rights. It embodies the pure Copyleft spirit.
GPL first acknowledges the copyright of the software-the software has the original copyright owner, and then includes the copyright license constraints of the free software. With the premise of copyright recognitionCan be used to achieve the requirement of free rights. The most important feature of a GPL license is that it requires modifications and translations of software released according to the GPL license (for example, the most influential Linux ).Product, even if any part of its code is published in GPL, all programs must be subject to the GPL license, that is, they must continue to comply with the GPL license regulations, and some people may name it

Is the "virus effect" of GPL ".

Lgpl license
Lgpl is an open-source protocol designed mainly for class libraries. Unlike GPL, any software that uses/Modifies/derives the GPL class library must use the GPL protocol. Lgpl allowXu commercial software uses the lgpl class library through class library reference (Link) instead of the code of open source commercial software. This allows open source code using the lgpl protocol to be used as a class library by commercial software.Reference concurrent deployment and sales.

However, if you modify or derive the lgpl protocol code, all the modified Code, the additional code involved in the modification part, and the derived code must adopt the lgpl protocol. Therefore, the lgpl ProtocolThe open source code is very suitable for commercial software reference as a third-party class library, but it is not suitable for commercial software development that requires secondary development based on the lgpl protocol code.. GPL and lgpl both protect the intellectual property rights of the original author and prevent people from using open-source code to copy and develop similar products.

MIT license
MIT is the same as BSD's wide-range license agreement. The author only wants to retain the copyright without any other restrictions. that is to say, you must include the original license agreement statement in your release, whether you useThe binary release is still based on the source code.

 

Software commercialization
commercial software success: copyright protection, marketing strategy, license bundling, patent protection, trademark protection
success of open-source software: some copyright retention, free opening and authorization, trademark protection, service charges, and hardware bundling
open-source software vendors are mainly making profits through services for the King, reasonable charges, free software, and hardware charges., the profit model of open-source software is under discussion.