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FOSS stands for "Free and Open Source Software". There is no one universally agreed-upon definition of FOSS software and various groups maintain approved lists of licenses. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is one such organization keeping a list of open-source licenses. [1] The Free Software Foundation (FSF) maintains a list of what it ...
Popular open source licenses include the Apache License, the MIT License, the GNU General Public License (GPL), the BSD Licenses, the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) and the Mozilla Public License (MPL). Open-source licenses are software licenses that allow content to be used, modified, and shared. They facilitate free and open-source ...
For information on software-related licences, see Comparison of free and open-source software licenses. A variety of free-content licences exist, some of them tailored to a specific purpose. Also listed are open-hardware licences, which may be used on design documents of and custom-made software for open-source hardware.
The Business Source License (SPDX id BUSL [1]) is a software license which publishes source code but limits the right to use the software to certain classes of users. The BUSL is not an open-source license, [1] but it is source-available license that also mandates an eventual transition to an open-source license. This characteristic has been ...
Functional Source License has been introduced in November 2023 by Sentry, as a simpler alternative to Business Source License. [12] It prohibits any "competing" use of the code, to preserve the rights of the author to economically exploit it, but applies for a limited time, after which the code itself is considered to be available under Apache ...
The Version 2 of the GNU General Public License [14] of 1991 also says that patents convert free software to proprietary software: "Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program ...
According to the Free Software Foundation the license would be classified as an "informal" free, non-copyleft and GPL-compatible license, however more detailed licenses are recommended. [2] Poul-Henning Kamp states preference of his Beerware license to other licenses, such as BSD and GPL, the latter of which he has described as a "joke". [4]
Licenses which only permit non-commercial redistribution or modification of the source code for personal use only are generally not considered as open-source licenses. However, open-source licenses may have some restrictions, particularly regarding the expression of respect to the origin of software, such as a requirement to preserve the name ...