Uwe Ohse

Software Licenses

This page details the licenses applying to software and documentation i've published, and will, if later versions of these licenses have been published by their authors, also show wether there apply to my software and documentation.

BSD - the BSD licenses

I do not use it, for the reasons outlined in my copyright FAQ.

FDL v1.1 - GNU Free Documentation License

This license does not apply to anything i ever published, and is likely to not apply to any future work of mine. The "invariant sections" are plain evil, they make it possible to forbid any modifications. Likewise the whole "COPYING IN QUANTITY" stuff is bad.

GPL v2 - GNU general public license, version 2

GPL v2 is OK.
Note that i do not use the "any later version" clause in my software anymore.

LGPL v2.1 - GNU general public license, version 2

The LGPL Version 2.1 is OK.
Note that i do not use the "any later version" clause in my software anymore.

public domain

I often give away library routines or smaller code as public domain code. Public domain means "do as you please".

Later version

Organizations and people publishing licenses may, at their will, publish newer versions of said licenses. Especially the FSF (the GNU people) encourages authors to use the "This code is published under the terms of ...; either version ... or (at your option) any later version" clause in their software or documentation.
I do not use the "any later version" clause, since i am not sure that later versions of said licenses are similar in spirit to former version. The new GNU FDL does not have the very same spirit of GPL and LGPL, and therefore i do not trust the FSF anymore.

Further references


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