By contrast, the gnu general public license is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software to make sure the software is free for all its. It is based on code from apache openoffice made available under the apache license 2. The free software foundation considers the apache license, version 2. The gnu general public license gnu gpl or gpl is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software. Drupal, and all contributed files that are derivative works of drupal hosted on, are licensed under the gnu general public license, version 2 or later. While the project strives to adhere to the preferred license, there are. In reading it, it is clear that usage of the gpl 2. If you want to use or distribute code licensed under the mpl 2. Agpl is the affero general public license, a variation of the gpl that caters to programs that run on a server. The gnulgpl is very popular among independent developers and companies which mainly deals with open source software. The gnu gpl is the most widely used free software license and has a strong copyleft requirement. The compatibility of the two licenses means that it is possible to release code under a dual license of both gplv3 and apache licence 2. That means you are free to download, reuse, modify, and distribute any files hosted in s git repositories under the terms of either the gpl version 2 or version 3, and to run drupal in.
The licenses were originally written by richard stallman, former head of the free software foundation fsf, for the gnu project, and grant the recipients of a computer program the rights of the free software. Version 2 of the gpl, released in 1991, went on to become the most widely used freesoftware license. Something it can be praised or criticized for depending your point of view. For those of you that choose to use the gnu general public license, my interpretation of the gnu general public license is that no perl script falls under the terms of the gpl unless you explicitly put said script under the terms of the gpl yourself. The emacs general public license, a february 1988 version, a direct predecessor of the gnu gpl. The gnu general public license gnu gpl or simply gpl is a widely used free software license, originally written by richard stallman for the gnu project. If you have some code you are thinking of releasing under an open source license, and you want a quick overview of the broadstrokes differences between these licenses, you have come to the right place. By contrast, the gnu general public license is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free softwareto make sure the software is free for all its. The mariadb server is available under the terms of the gnu general public license, version 2 the gnu project mantains an official page with information about the gnu gpl 2 license, including a faq and various translations. Gnu general public license version 2 open source initiative. Libreoffice is made available subject to the terms of the mozilla public license v2.
Why corporations favors the apache license over the gpllgpl. However, the language of the license text was strongly amended and is much more comprehensive in response to technical and legal changes and international license exchange. All packages produced by the asf are implicitly licensed under the apache license, version 2. The latest version of the gpl, version 3 what to do if you see a possible gpl violation translations of gplv2 gplv2. You may copy, distribute and modify the software as long as you track changesdates of in source files and keep modifications under gpl. The gnu general public license is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works. Creative commons licenses are several licenses released on december 16, 2002 by creative commons, a u. The following licenses are in use for r or associated software such as packages. You can therefore only license code under the lgpl 2.
Copyright c 1989, 1991 free software foundation, inc. Thus, the terms and conditions of the gnu general public license cover the whole combination. The boilerplate can be found at the end of the license. Differences in distribution, linking, modification, private use of open source licenses like mit, gnu gpl, apache 2. They essentially say if you make a derivative work of this, and distribute it to others under certain circumstances, then you have to provide the source code under this license. Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is making a combined work based on this library. According to the chart it would appear that the popularity of open source licensing has subsequently shifted to the mit and apache licenses. You can distribute your application using a gpl library commercially, but you must also provide the source code. It is a composite expression constructed using parentheses, and or operators, and the with operator for license exceptions see below.
This document attempts to draw together the main features of the gnu general public license v2 into a friendly and comprehensible digest and, in addition, to. Netbeans distributions include additional components under separate licenses identified in the. Openssl is covered by one of two licenses, depending on which release is involved. We want specified freelibre and open source software. The android open source project aosp uses a few open source initiative approved open source licenses for our software. As a special exception, if you create a document which uses this font, and embed this font or unaltered portions of this font into the document, this font does not by itself cause the resulting document to be covered by the gnu general public license.
The apache software foundation and the free software foundation agree that the apache license 2. So far in our open source software license faq series, we have covered your top 10 questions about the gpl, the apache 2. This license has been deprecated since license list version 2. Exhibit a is provided in order to allow the source code to be made available under a secondary licenses. Difference between different types of open sources licenses. Linux kernel licensing rules the linux kernel documentation. Lawsuit threatens to break new ground on the gpl and. The core concept behind the gpl being any derivative work must be released under the gpl too. The software freedom law center provides practical advice for developers about including permissively licensed source. Haufig gestellte fragen zur gnu gplv2 free software foundation. The gpl license is based on the principle that if you use gpl licensed software in your software or solution then this software or solution also has to have a gpl. Whichever they choose, they must comply with both that license and apache 2. The free software foundation today released the second discussion draft of the gnu affero general public license gnu agpl.
So i created softwarelicensegpl3andartistic2 which is sort of a perl5 license, except that it mandates the latest version of gpl and artistic at the time of this writing. The gpl licenses gplv3, gplv2, lgpl, affero gpl all contain some kind of sharealike license. Nov 27, 2018 as a valued partner and proud supporter of metacpan, stickeryou is happy to offer a 10% discount on all custom stickers, business labels, roll labels, vinyl lettering or custom decals. As a developer, you are likely to use a lot of libraries and software licensed as gpl. This is an unofficial translation of the gnu general public license into language. This license refers to version 3 of the gnu general public license. Due the gpl 2 and gpl 3 incompatibility, a project that intends its software to be directly combined with existing gpl 2 code, such as the linux kernel, would probably be. The thing with the gpl license is that it requires that if a single line of your application is licensed with it, then all of the application must be made available under the gpl license, even if that first. Handbrake handbrake is an opensource, gpllicensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available. Top 10 common development and distribution license cddl.
The majority of the netbeans ide code is available under a dual license consisting of the common development and distribution license cddl v1. Licenses libreoffice free office suite fun project. Nov 10, 2005 the gnu general public license v2 gpl v2 for short is the most commonly used open source licence. The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. Creative commons license vs gpl difference and comparison. In all cases, there is a file named license in the toplevel of the release. That means you are free to download, reuse, modify, and distribute any files hosted in s git repositories under the terms of either the gpl version 2 or version 3, and to run drupal in combination with any code with any license that is compatible with either versions 2 or 3, such as the affero general public license agpl version 3. The new license version contains a series of clauses that address questions that were not or were only insufficiently covered in version 2 of the gpl. When you make and distribute a modified version of autoconf, you may extend this special. The apache license, on the other hand, is favored by the big corporations for their open source projects. In 1989, version 1 of the gnu general public license gpl was published. Jul 24, 2018 in the absence of distribution, a user is merely using the software, and since the act of running the gpl code is not subject to the license, one does not have to share their modifications to the code. Exhibit a is provided in order to allow the source code to be made available under a secondary license s.
This license is based on gplv3 with a new requirement to ensure that users who interact with the software over a network can receive the source for that program. If a developer modifies a program released under the gpl, he is expected to release the modified program under the same license, but if this program runs on a server only, the developer is not really releasing it to the rest of the world. To learn more about the free software foundations other licenses, please see our licenses page. While the project strives to adhere to the preferred license, there are exceptions, which are handled on a casebycase. Handbrake handbrake is an opensource, gpl licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available. Apache 2 software can therefore be included in gplv3 projects, because the gplv3 license accepts our software into gplv3 works. The simplest way to express the license for a file is with a single license id such as apache2. Secondary license means either the gnu general public license, version 2. In this post i want to give a high level overview of this license, telling you what you can do with gpl software, what you cant do with gpl software, and what you must do when you rely on it the gpl is, historically, at the core of open source software. There is no standard license header for the license.
The linux kernel is provided under the terms of the gnu general public license version 2 only gpl 2. Software licenses in plain english lookup popular software licenses summarized ataglance. Apache 2 software can therefore be included in gplv3 projects, because the gplv3. The fsf claims that gpl v2 is incompatible with apache 2. By contrast, the gnu general public license is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software to make sure the software is free for all its users. By contrast, the gnu general public licenses are intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free softwareto make sure the software is free for all its users. Most gpl version 2 software is actually licensed as gpl version 2 or any later version, or. What is the difference between gnu gpl 2 and 3 licenses. Tldrlegal software licenses explained in plain english. When a person or company wants to use a project licensed underfor examplegpl v3, apache 2. The gnu general public license v2 gpl v2 for short is the most commonly used open source licence. This special exception to the gpl applies to versions of autoconf released by the free software foundation. So i created software license gpl3andartistic2 which is sort of a perl5 license, except that it mandates the latest version of gpl and artistic at the time of this writing.
We, the free software foundation, use the gnu general public license for most of our software. However, the linking exception of the lgpl allows linking from an apache 2. It was not published by the free software foundation, and does not legally state the distribution terms for software that uses the gnu gplonly the original english text of the gnu gpl does that. The common development and distribution license cddl and gnu public license v.
Jun 21, 2016 most surveys indicate that the vast majority of open source projects use the mit license, the apache license, and the gpl or their variants. Further, even if you have decided on the gpl license, choosing version 3 is not an openandshut case. The free software foundation recommends taking the additional step of adding a boilerplate notice to the top of each file. This special exception was added by the free software foundation in version 2. If your software is a combinedderivate work withof apache 2 software, you cannot license that software under the gpl 2 and therefore cannot license it under the lgpl 2. Mozilla is the custodian of the mozilla public license mpl, an open sourcefree software license. Or, you may accidentally make your software incompatible with the free software definition or the open source definition, or with the other commonlyused free software licenses that mpl 2. An author must consciously recast, transform, or adapt the gpllicensed software all of which are forms of modification before the gpl applies to the. By contrast, the gnu general public license is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a programto make sure it remains free software for all its users. The faq for the current version of the gpl is here. The gnu general public license gnu gpl or simply gpl is a widely used free software license, originally written by. The incompatibility of apache 2 and gpl 2 is well documented.
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