August 2004
Beginner to intermediate
208 pages
8h 3m
English
Content preview from Understanding Open Source and Free Software LicensingBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
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The Self-Enforcing Nature of Open Source and Free Software Licenses
There is a "savings" logic present in the MIT License (and others) that preserves the effect of the license even in the absence of an affirmative act of consent. This is because open source and free software licenses do not impose affirmative obligations on licensees but rather impose restrictions on the rights granted under the license: such restrictions can be relatively straightforward, as is the case with the MIT License's requirement of reprinting the copyright and permission notice; or somewhat more complex, as with the far-reaching consequences of licensing under the GPL License.[3]
The GPL License provides a good example of this phenomenon. The typical limitations of proprietary licenses simply do not apply to most applications of GPL-licensed software. For example, installing, using, or even modifying GPL-licensed software implicates no term of that license. Any user is completely free to undertake any of these actions. There are no limitations on the number of installations of the software that a user may undertake and no requirement that the user pay royalties in exchange for use, in sharp contrast to proprietary licenses. Only if the user intends to distribute the original code or modified versions of it does the GPL come into effect.
It is only at this point (and the same is true of the other open source and free licenses already discussed) that questions of enforcement even arise. And it is at this ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.