An
open source license is a copyright license for computer software that follows the principles of the [open source movement]
?. More formally, a license is considered open source when it has approved by the
Open Source Initiative, with the criteria being the
Open Source Definition. Software in the
public domain (that is, with no copyright license at all) meets those criteria and is therefore recognized by the OSI and entitled to use their
service mark. In addition, the following licenses have been approved:
- [Apache Software License]?
- [Artistic license]?
- BSD license
- GNU General Public License (GPL)
- GNU Lesser Public License (LGPL)
- [IBM Public License]?
- [Intel Open Source License]?
- [Jabber Open Source License]?
- MIT license
- [MITRE Collaborative Virtual Workspace License]? (CVW License)
- [Mozilla Public License 1.0]? (MPL)
- [Mozilla Public License 1.1]? (MPL 1.1)
- [Nethack General Public License]?
- [Nokia Open Source License]?
- [Python license]?
- [Qt Public License]? (QPL)
- [Ricoh Source Code Public License]?
- [Sleepycat License]?
- [Sun Internet Standards Source License]? (SISSL)
- [Vovida Software License]? v. 1.0
- [zlib-libpng license]?
It should be noted that the Free Software Foundation has different criteria for evaluating whether or not a license qualifies as free. See Free software license.
See also: open source, [open source movement]?, Open Source Initiative, Free Software Foundation, Public domain
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