Where copyright is used to protect intellectual property (including software) from being copied or distributed, copyleft is used to ensure that open-sourced intellectual property and software can be copied or distributed as open source.Īccording to its strength, there are two kinds of copyleft: One pretty interesting concept about open-source licenses is what is usually called copyleft, the opposite of copyright. The different licenses also matter when you want to publish your own code as open-source and you are deciding which license you should use. So, can we use an open-source software in the development of a product or project? Basically, it depends on the license of the used software and the intended license for the final product. Software patents are another example of this: some open-source licenses grant permissions to use patents freely, but not all of them. In a similar way, open-source licenses allow you to use the software for any purpose, but that doesn’t mean that they allow you to hack into a bank using open-source licensed software. Open-source licenses may allow you to redistribute the software or derived works freely, but that allowance may also be restricted in some countries where exporting cryptographic software is banned. The software can be used by any person or group of people, and in any fields of endeavor, with no limitations.īut you must keep in mind that software licenses speak only about using or distributing permissions granted by the copyright holders.Depending on the original software’s license, in some cases these derived works must be differentiated from original software by changing their name or version number, or can be only distributed in the form of source-code patches. Creation of derived works are allowed, and the license allows them to be distributed under the same terms and license as the original software.This source code is usable for developing modified versions of the software. The source code of the licensed software is either included in the distribution, or at least there are well-publicized means of obtaining the source code.
![artistic licence 2.0 artistic licence 2.0](https://www.esl-france.com/4231-thickbox_default/artistic-licence-rail-contact-8-contact-sec-vers-dmx512.jpg)
![artistic licence 2.0 artistic licence 2.0](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6jiLlW5dH1o/hqdefault.jpg)
This can be done without paying any royalties. Free redistribution of the software: the software can be sold or given away as a product or included in a software package.The full list can be consulted in the Open Source Definition, but here is a basic summary: In case of doubt, please refer to the actual text of the licenses I am talking about, and to your legal counselor.Īll open-source software, according to the Open Source Initiative, is distributed under a license that gives its users and developers (the licensees) some rights. But as we are going to talk about the details of the different licenses, first we need to speak about the specific properties that define open-source software.įirst of all: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. I suppose that you already have an approximate idea of what open-source software is.