The gnulgpl is very popular among independent developers and companies which mainly deal with open source software. Weve compiled a list of your top 10 questions about the gpl license in the last post. You can see the license header in all the source files of. In this article, we take a look at the difference between this two licenses to find out why. If you were wondering whether you can use apache licensed code in your commercial applications and what do you need to do in order to comply with the license heres the unofficial simple ans short answer. Tldrlegal provides generally good summaries of licenses.
Apache projects used in every internetconnected country on the planet. The terms state that users cant remove existing, patent, trademarks and attribution notices. Let say a software developer uses a library for android phones to make a game, and then makes a patent claim in an attempt to extort license fees from other users wishing to make games using the same library. As such, an open source author may choose to openly license her projects s and.
It allows users to use the software for any purpose, to distribute it, to modify it, and to distribute modified versions of the software under the terms of the license, without concern for royalties. The apache incubator is the primary entry path into the apache software foundation for projects and codebases wishing to become part of the foundations efforts. Mar 07, 2020 apache geronimo is developed by the apache software foundation under the apache license, which makes it an open source project so we can also contribute, the same as in the previous application servers. Apache 2 software can therefore be included in gplv3 projects, because the gplv3 license accepts our software into gplv3 works. Why corporations favors the apache license over the gpllgpl. Definitions license shall mean the terms and conditions for use, reproduction, and distribution as defined by sections 1 through 9 of this document. Feb 23, 20 tldrlegal provides generally good summaries of licenses. An update to the fsfs list of free software licenses lists the new apache license, version 2. Licensor shall mean the owner or entity authorized by the owner that is. I can take program a and use it, read the source, modify it e. If the software developer did this, they would immediately lose their right to use the library under the apache license. Bsd license is a part of a family of free software licenses that have much fewer restrictions in distribution as compared to other free software licenses.
Driven by ant, essentially an ant task, texen uses a control template, an optional set of worker templates, and control context to govern the generated output. The comparison only covers software licenses with a linked article for details, approved by at least one expert group at the fsf, the osi, the debian project or the fedora project. The content on this website, of which is the author, is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4. Mit license spot the differences due to the helpful visualizations at a glance category. This is a comparison of free and opensource software licenses. Its a popular and widely deployed license backed by a. Software licensing gpl agpl bsd mit apache eula youtube. The real story is that hard work has been done to make the gpl3 compatible with the apache license 2 or apl v2, asf is the apache software foundation and not a license. Apache fop comes with a number of libraries all of which are currently coming from within the apache software foundation. One has the gnu lgpl 3 license and the other has the apache software license, version 2. As a reminder, open source software licenses generally.
Planetary motion or appellee sued techsplosion, inc. The apache license, on the other hand, is favored by the big corporations for their open source projects. The apache software foundation asf was founded in 1999 by a group of opensource enthusiasts who saw the need to create a legal entity to institutionalize their work. And by making the database 100% open source, yugabytedb removes other. Why we changed yugabytedb licensing to 100% open source.
Apache lucene is a highperformance, fullfeatured text search engine library written entirely in java. Jan 21, 20 apache is decent model when you have expertise and money, but do not have significant market share yet. Visit to learn how were building healthy and resilient communities. All packages produced by the asf are implicitly licensed under the apache license, version 2. The software freedom law center provides practical advice for developers about including permissively licensed source. Gpl, lgpl, apache, bsd, the great thing about open source code is the large amount of high quality code that is available and many embedded projects use foss code as it really speeds up development time. Licensor shall mean the owner or entity authorized by the owner that is granting the license. Asf contributor agreements the apache software foundation. Compatible, ie that gpl3 software can link too apl software, is new gpl2 code wasnt able to link toinclude apache licensed code, is new. The following licenses are sorted by the number of conditions, from most gnu agplv3 to none unlicense. Nonsoftware enterprises like banks or states and folk. Yet, many foss licenses, like the apache license, and all free software. It is developed in java and supports the java ee 6 specification. To inspect the license terms please consult the license and notice files in the root directory of the distribution.
The apache license has a similar philosophy to the mit, but uses more words. Cliff schmidts apachecon presentation titled licensing. Texen is a general purpose text generating utility. Copyleft licenses like gpl are, generally speaking, bad for business. Xml commons contains some software and documentation that is covered under a number of different licenses. Difference between different types of open sources licenses. Various licenses and comments about them gnu project free. Unless otherwise noted all files in xml commons are covered under the apache license version 2. Gnu general public license version 3 gnu general public license v2.
The text should be enclosed in the appropriate comment syntax for the file format. The apache license is a permissive free software license written by the apache software foundation asf. Note that only apache committers may subscribe to this list. It is capable of producing almost any sort of text output. Third party content licenses the eclipse foundation. To apply the apache license to your work, attach the following boilerplate notice, with the fields enclosed by brackets replaced with your own identifying information. It allows users to use the software for any purpose. Subject to the terms and conditions of this license, each contributor hereby grants to you a perpetual, worldwide, nonexclusive, nocharge, royaltyfree, irrevocable except as stated in this section patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer the work, where such license applies only to those. You can freely use, modify, distribute and sell a software licensed under the apache license without worrying about the use of software. Heres the second post in our open source software license faq series. It is essentially identical to the x11 license, with an optional alternative way of providing license notices.
The gpl is by far the best software license for endusers of the code. Mit, apache, or gpl to one of our nonprofit clients for their open source. Mar 22, 2020 im a speaker at various tech conferences e. Licensed to the apache software foundation asf under one or more contributor. Nov 08, 2015 linus torvalds says gpl v3 violates everything that gplv2 stood for duration. If you are releasing software under a gpl license, it is also necessary to. Non software enterprises like banks or states and folk like your dad benefit a lot from gpl license. Comparison of free and opensource software licenses wikipedia. Spinosaurus fishes for prey planet dinosaur bbc youtube. Yes, groovy is an open source programming language project, licensed under the apache license v2. The long and short of itif you use open source software within your software development project, any permissive license should be fine. The apache software foundation celebrates 20 years of. Check out bbc earth on bbc online john hurts tells the stories of the biggest, deadliest and weirdest. The apache software foundation uses various agreements to accept regular contributions from individuals and corporations, and to accept larger grants of existing software products.
If you do not see any interesting projects from the proposed ideas, we encourage you to contact one of the apache projects mailing list and propose a new idea. These agreements help us achieve our goal of providing reliable and longlived software products through collaborative open source software development. Derby is available under the apache license, version 2. Among other things, were often asking joe about software licensing. If your project is currently using a dual licensing scheme involving the eclipse public license v1. They require all modifications, and any software based on the open source. The free software foundation considers the apache license, version 2. Apache projects are defined by collaborative, consensusbased processes, an open, pragmatic software license and a desire to create high quality software. Gnu lesser gpl and apache software licenses denver. All code donations from external organisations and existing external projects seeking to join the apache community enter through the incubator. The gnulgpl is very popular among independent developers and companies which mainly deals with open source software.
Top 10 apache license questions answered whitesource. Apache geronimo is developed by the apache software foundation under the apache license, which makes it an open source project so we can also contribute, the same as in the previous application servers. Let us examine why these corporations stay away from gpl and favor the apache license. Previous versions of the sgi free software license b were not free software licenses, despite their name. Open source licenses grant permission for anybody to use, modify, and share licensed software for any purpose, subject to conditions preserving the provenance and openness of the software. Apache is decent model when you have expertise and money, but do not have significant market share yet. I cannot find the source code of guava in a file to download it seems only a gitaccess is possible. Its also arguable whether the licenses mentioned other than apache have an implicit patent grant. The full license text can also be accessed via the web from the apache licenses page. Licensed to the apache software foundation asf under one or more contributor license. The wordiness creates greater specificity about contributors obligations, which might help in a dispute.
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