General Public License (GPL)

See the following -

7 Reasons Why Free Software Is Losing Influence

Bruce Byfield | Datamation | November 22, 2011

Five years ago, when most of the Java code was released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), Sun Microsystems took care to enlist the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in the announcement, collecting approving statements from Richard Stallman, the president of the FSF, and Eben Moglen, its legal counsel. Read More »

7 Reasons Why Free Software Is Losing Influence

Bruce Byfield | Datamation | November 22, 2011

Five years ago, when most of the Java code was released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), Sun Microsystems took care to enlist the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in the announcement, collecting approving statements from Richard Stallman, the president of the FSF, and Eben Moglen, its legal counsel.

Read More »

Busted For Dodging Linux License, Samsung Makes Nice With Free Code

Robert McMillan | Wired | August 20, 2013

Samsung has released software that could help a brand new class of storage devices work with Linux-based smartphones and computers. Read More »

Choosing the Best License for Your Open Source Software Project

Paul Rubens | CIO Magazine | October 1, 2013

You need sound coding skills to create good software, but the success of an open source project can also depend on something much less glamorous: your choice of software license. Read More »

Copyleft Can’t Undo Copyright

Matt Jacobs | Open Source Delivers | October 10, 2012

As Black Duck’s in-house counsel, I talk to many lawyers representing our customers and in the Global 2000 generally. I’ve found that there is a common misperception around the impact of the GPL on IP that is worth clearing up. Read More »

Docker And The Rise Of Open Source

Aaref Hilaly | LinkedIn | November 18, 2014

There’s never been a phenomenon like Docker. Eighteen months ago, the company took its core technology, which enables IT people to move software easily between different machines by enclosing it in “containers”, and made it open source...

Read More »

FSF Uses Unproven Compliance Issue to Promote GPLv3

Brian Proffitt | IT World | August 22, 2011

The Free Software Foundation (FSF), in its quest to promote version 3 of the GNU General Public License (GPL) over the GPLv2, has joined the chorus of observers who have made broad hints that vendors within the Android operating system ecosystem are guilty of some violation of the GPLv2. Read More »

GitHub's Wild West Approach To Licensing Has Hidden Costs

Matt Asay | ReadWrite | July 16, 2013

The GitHub generation doesn't seem to like the bother of licenses, but is it prepared to stomach the costs? Read More »

How To Choose Your Open Source Hardware License

Simone Cicero | Open Electronics | August 8, 2013

It’s always tricky when you create something: a complex project, a commercial product or just an hack and then you must decide what license you should use for that, for releasing it to the public... Read More »

Open Source Leads The Way Into The Cloud

Arsalan Farooq | Computerworld | August 29, 2012

Virtualization is now a well-established technology in enterprise computing. And in virtualization, VMware is the established leader. But virtualization has begat cloud computing and now the field of play in cloud computing is far more open thanks to open source technologies. Read More »

Open Source Needs To Clean Up Its Language

Simon Phipps | InfoWorld | November 1, 2013

The licensing terms 'weak copyleft,' 'strong copyleft,' and 'permissive' are confusing. Here are my proposed alternatives Read More »

Open Source Project Builds Mobile Networks Without Big Carriers

Steven Max Patterson | NetworkWorld | March 17, 2014

Data centers, mobile phones, and the software industry have all been changed by open source. Are mobile networks next?

Read More »

Ruby Project Ditches GPL in Favour of BSD

Gareth Halfacree | Thinq_ | October 30, 2011

Ruby 1.9.3-p0, the first release in the new stable series, was released last night, but in addition to several new features and improvements - including better support for library loading, and locking in multi-threaded programs and support for Unicode 6.0 - comes with a change in licensing. Read More »

The Money In Open-Source Software

Max Schireson and Dharmesh Thakker | Tech Crunch | February 9, 2016

It’s no secret that open-source technology — once the province of radicals, hippies and granola eaters — has gone mainstream. According to industry estimates, more than 180 young companies that give away their software raised roughly $3.2 billion in financing from 2011 to 2014. Even major enterprise-IT vendors are relying on open-source for critical business functions today. It’s a big turnaround from the days when former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer famously called the open-source Linux operating system “a cancer” (and obviously a threat to Windows)...

Read More »

To Be Permissive Or Not To Be Permissive, That Is The Question For Open Source Licensors

Phil Johnson | IT World | September 3, 2014

A new study of open source project growth suggests that choosing a permissive license can help your community to grow faster...

Read More »