Software Licenses
This page details the licenses applying to software and documentation
i've published, and will, if later versions of these licenses have been
published by their authors, also show wether there apply to my software
and documentation.
BSD - the BSD licenses
I do not use it, for the reasons outlined in my
copyright FAQ.
This license does not apply to anything i ever published, and is likely
to not apply to any future work of mine. The "invariant sections" are
plain evil, they make it possible to forbid any modifications. Likewise
the whole "COPYING IN QUANTITY" stuff is bad.
GPL v2 is OK.
Note that i do not use the
"any later version" clause in my software anymore.
The LGPL Version 2.1 is OK.
Note that i do not use the
"any later version" clause in my software anymore.
public domain
I often give away library routines or smaller code as public domain code.
Public domain means "do as you please".
Organizations and people publishing licenses may, at their will, publish
newer versions of said licenses. Especially the FSF (the GNU people)
encourages authors to use the "This code is published under the terms
of ...; either version ... or (at your option) any later version" clause
in their software or documentation.
I do not use the "any later version" clause, since i am not sure that
later versions of said licenses are similar in spirit to former version.
The new GNU FDL does not have the very same spirit of GPL and LGPL,
and therefore i do not trust the FSF anymore.
Further references
- My copyright FAQ contains my
opinions about mixed copyrights, open source and so on.
Send comments to uwe@ohse.de.