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Open Source Licenses: Read the Fine Print

By David Delony, Contributing Writer

While open source licenses offer users and developers a lot of freedom, they should still read the fine print of these licenses, according to Network World.

Free (“as in speech, not as in beer,” as the Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman likes to point out) and open source software is everywhere, from smartphones to corporate mainframes.

These programs have licenses that let users see the source code, study it and make changes, a far cry from most commercial software packages that are black boxes. Free, high quality software is a win, no matter what the license is for a lot of businesses. They are as legally binding as proprietary software licenses.

The only issue comes when companies want to distribute the changes they’ve made. The Free Software Foundation’s GNU General Public License, or GPL, requires developers to release their modified versions under the same term as the original version.

The provision only applies to developers who want to release their own distribution. Companies who modify a program for internal use don’t have to distribute these modifications.

The Affero GPL is attempts to close a loophole in regard to web apps by requiring people who use a licensed program to distribute the source of their changes.

The use of the license has grown, but not in the way the FSF has intended. The AGPL mostly affects companies who want to release both an open source and proprietary program

“Its use has grown, I would not say organically, so much as it’s grown as part of a poison-pill regime,” Black Duck Software (News - Alert) senior director of strategy told Network World. “If you want to encourage people to buy your commercial goods, as opposed to just using your open-source version, then you make the open-source license onerous to as many people as possible.”

That’s why a lot of companies who want to reap the benefits of open source while still keeping some code proprietary have gravitated toward the BSD or MIT (News - Alert) licenses, which only require a credit to the original developers and don’t require them to actually release their code.