The OpenLogic Certified Library includes hundreds of open source projects and licenses. While many of these licenses are custom, most are based — at least loosely — on one of the 18 most commonly used license types. We’ve laid out for you in table form a detailed comparison of the common features of these licenses.
The three tables below compare the licenses on these general, and commonly considered, points, in increasing detail:
- Author
- Date published
- OSI Approved
- GPL Compatible
- Copyleft
For those of you new to licensing, some definitions:
GPL Compatible licenses allow the combination of the code covered by them with programs that use the GPL without conflict. Some free/open source software licenses are not GPL-compatible which means they impose conditions not in keeping with the GPL.
Copyleft licenses – of which the GPL is the most commonly used – require any work originating in the licensed code to be made available under terms identical to that specified by the license that applies to the originating code.
Comparing Licenses One to Another
Here’s a pdf of the highest level comparison…
A little more detail…
And the most detail yet…
If you’d like, you can download the entire license matrix in either Microsoft Excel (XLS) or OpenDocument Spreadsheet (ODS) format.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Dave,
This is an excellent effort and a very valued one in the OSS community. However, I was just ever so slightly shocked to see it published in a proprietary Microsoft XLS format. I realize this is a dominant format, but I would have hoped for a parallel publish in an open spreadsheet format. Thanks for considering a dual-publish format in the future, and thanks for the excellent work.
With Appreciation,
Matthew McCullough
[...] Wazi site has some other interesting comparisons, too, on databases and licenses. Categories Goings-on «busdma(9) changes for after [...]
Thanks for the suggestion, Matthew. We’ve added a download option in OpenDocument Spreadsheet (ODS) format.
[...] this today through a link on Twitter. All of you fascinated with licenses should give it a look http://olex.openlogic.com/wazi/2008/…f_screenshots/ Unfortunately, it's from 2008 so I'm not sure how accurate all of the information is. WPTavern [...]