Which licenses we can use

 

This page lists our current understanding of which license we can use for our Apache v2 product and what we need to think on.

LicensePossibleWhat we need to doNotes
Apache 2 (ASL)(tick)
  • include a copy of the license and the copyright
  • indicate significant changes to the given code
 
Apache 1.1(tick)
  • include a copy of the license and the copyright
  • indicate significant changes to the given code
 
EPL(tick)
  • include a copy of the license and the copyright
  • source code must be made available
 
LGPL 3(tick)
  • indicate significant changes to the given code
  • include a copy of the license and the copyright
  • source code must be made available
 
MIT / X / X11(tick)
  • include a copy of the license and the copyright
 
Public Domain(tick)  
Modified BSD(tick)
  • include a copy of the license and the copyright
 
Mozilla Public License (MPL) 2.0(tick)
  • include a copy of the license and the copyright
  • source code must be made available
 
Common Public License (CPL)(tick)  
Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL)(tick)  
GPL or AGPL(error)
  • we can use this if we do not ship it (e.g. within testing)
  • we can use it if the GPL code is only called via sockets or pipes (meaning the code of GPL is not used within the same process)
  • If we use GPL please ensure that you note down why this is legally possible for us.
GPL based licenses use a strong copyleft that necessitate that as soon as you create a derivative work, this needs to be licensed GPL as well.

 

For further licenses that come up, check the wiki page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-source_software_licenses and/or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Compatibility_and_multi-licensing - they list whether or not a given license is compatbile with another license. To check what needs to be done by us in order to comply with the restrictions of a license, we can check here: http://choosealicense.com/licenses/