Before putting a software product on the network, it would be good to think about copyright and possible nuances of using your code. This is where open-source licenses come in handy. Today we will look at the most popular ones:
- GNU GPL
- Apache 2.0
- MPL v2.0
- The unlicense
General concepts
When it comes about licenses, you may come across the following terms:
- Copyleft license - requiring you to distribute derivative products under the same license. That is, let's say you used a third-party library with a copyleft license X in your project. You will also have to license product X.
- The permissive license does not impose any restrictions. Using someone else's module with such a license, you can distribute the final product under any license, both commercial and open-source.
- Compatibility. You can use third-party software with licenses X, Y, Z as components of your project, if X, Y, Z are compatible with the license of your project.
GNU General Public License
The most important things you need to know about the GNU GPL are:
- You must provide the source code of your program for study, even if you distribute the compiled product.
- If you have used software licensed under the GNU GPL in your project, the final product must also be licensed under the GNU GPL. The same goes for modifying and distributing versions of someone else's code.
MIT
The MIT license is the most well-known in the free software world. If the developer does not care about patent rights and in what form his code will be distributed once on the Internet, the choice often falls on MIT.
- Allows free use of the software without restrictions: including modification, distribution and sale of copies.
- The final product can be redistributed under any license.
- Source codes are optional.
- Disclaimer of Warranties. The user uses the software at his own risk.
- Denial of responsibility. You won't be able to present anything to the developer.
- The only prerequisite is the indication of the license and the author.
Apache 2.0
Unlike MIT, it places a stronger emphasis on copyright. In the header of each source code file, you must indicate the authorship:
Copyright Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
You don't have to do this in the source code — you can use the NOTICE file. If you use a third-party Apache 2.0 licensed component in your project that contains your NOTICE file, you must copy its contents into the final product.
Apache 2.0 is permissive, which means that an end product with Apache 2.0 components can be licensed of any kind. Requires a mention of the original authorship, as well as an indication of all changes made to the work.
Mozilla Public License v2.0
MPL is a copyleft license, but not for the whole project, but for its individual files.
- If you change the file, it should remain under MPL 2.0.
- Components of any license can be added to the project without restrictions.
The unlicense
An attempt to make the code public domain and repudiate.
Beerware
A license with a funny name. It is permissive and has no restrictions. Contains an optional condition to buy beer for the author (drink in honor of the author) if you liked his project :)
Conclusion
Want other developers to share improvements to your product? Choose GNU GPL or MPL. Is the copyright issue important? Then Apache 2.0 is for you. No exact license requirements? You can put the code online by licensing it from MIT. A complete list of licenses is available on the website
The misconception that you can do anything with open source software for personal and commercial purposes is widespread. Most people associate such software with the word "free", but in fact, the developed open source licenses do not say anything about the price of the software distributed in this way.
Open source means exactly what is written - the source code of such programs is available for review and modification, and licenses describe what can and cannot be done with this code. These restrictions affect mainly commercial developers of software products and electronic equipment.
GPL
GNU GPL (GNU General Public License) is one of the most common open source licenses. Linux kernel, MySQL, Asterisk and many others are distributed under this license. Majority CMS systems such as MovableType, MODx, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, osCommerce and many others are released under the GPL. According to various sources, in the world up to 70% open source software released under the GPL.
The main purpose of the GPL is to protect the openness of free software. It is designed to protect developers from the fact that their developments will be used by the creators of proprietary software in their products. The main condition of the GPL is that a product using code protected by this license must also be distributed under the GPL, and its source code must be available to the recipient of such a product, who can do anything with that code under the GPL.
Therefore, if you are building a project with GPL-protected code, you are required to redistribute your product under the GPL. Distribution in in this case does not just mean the distribution of the final product. This term also includes the transfer of the product to the customer of the software source codes. The only situation in which the requirements of the GPL are not mandatory is the absence of the fact of distribution as such. That is, you use the modified code solely for your personal use or for the purposes of the company for which you work.
LGPL
GNU LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License) differs from the GPL in that it allows LGPL products to be used in projects distributed under other licenses. That is, the terms similar to the GPL apply only to the portion of the derivative product that is borrowed from the product protected by the LGPL.
Initially, the creators of the GPL and the LGPL - Free Software Foundation - assumed the use of the GPL in finished products, and the LGPL in libraries for developers, but on this moment this division is not true. The most famous product released under the LGPL is OpenOffice.org.
1) MIT License
The MIT license is developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is considered an academic license, that is, it is recognized for use in scientific research. On the GNU website, it is called Expat license. In addition, the XFree86 system is also distributed under the MIT license, only in this case it was called the X11 License on the GNU website.
2) BSD License
The BSD license emerged in the early 1980s specifically to distribute the BSD operating system. There are three options for the text of this license:
1. Original BSD license or BSD 4-clause license.
2. Modified BSD license ("New BSD license" on the OSI site) or BSD three-clause license.
3. Intel Corporation "BSD + Patent License" is specifically designed to modify and distribute programs that may be protected by Intel software patents. This license is not endorsed by either the Open Source Initiative or the FSF.
The very first BSD license consisted of 4 points:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions of binary code must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and / or other materials supplied with the redistribution.
3. All advertising materials mentioning the features or use of this software must include the following notice: "This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors."
4. Neither the name of the University, nor the names of its employees can be used to support or promote products based on this software without prior written permission.
But in 1999, due to popular demand, the third clause was removed as an "annoying BSD advertising agreement" because complex systems, using the code of many programs, sometimes had to scroll up to a dozen pages of advertisements. The result is a modified BSD three-clause license, which is now the primary license.
In addition, the GNU site provides another two-part license, the "FreeBSD license", which consists of only the first two clauses of the BSD license. The same GNU site does not recommend calling this license the "BSD license" to avoid causing confusion.
3) GPL license
The GNU General Public License (GNU General Public License or GNU General Public License) is the most popular free software license created by the GNU Project. The first version of the GPL was released in 1988, but then it was revised and version 2 of the GPL was released in June 1991, which is still the standard. GPL provides recipients computer programs following rights, or "freedom":
- freedom to run the program, for any purpose;
- the freedom to learn how the program works and modify it (a prerequisite for this is access to the source code);
- freedom to distribute copies;
- freedom to improve the program, and release improvements in public access(a prerequisite for this is access to the source code).
On January 16, 2006, the first draft of the license was presented at the first international GPL 3 conference held at MIT. Of course, GPL 3 turned out to be longer and more complex than GPL 2.
Almost immediately after that, Linus Torvalds expressed his disappointment with the GPLv3 license, stating that he did not see any fundamental changes in it that could prompt an update to the Linux kernel license. GPLv3 was also opposed by Andrew Morton, one of the main developers of the operating room. Linux systems, David Woodhouse, Dave Jones and several other experts. In their opinion, the presented version of GPLv3 needed serious revision.
The second draft appeared on July 27th, before that international conferences in the United States, Brazil and Spain, and over a thousand proposals have been submitted to the FSF comment system. As a result, quite a few corrections were made, but they mainly relate to nuances and secondary issues.
Here are some of the innovations that GPLv3 brings:
- The first draft of the GPLv3 completely forbade the use of control digital rights(Digital Restriction Management, DRM), for example, it said the following: "DRM is fundamentally incompatible with the intent of the GPL, and severely restricts users' freedom; therefore, the GPL guarantees that software released under this license will never be subject to digital restrictions, and never will do the same with other software or digital content. " However, in the second version of the license, the wording became more neutral, and the term DRM itself was not even mentioned in the text.
- Now it is possible to expand the license with some additional requirements (for example, the requirement to indicate the copyright of the original product in all modified ones). Such additions should help with the compatibility of the GPL with other free licenses.
- The use of patents is regulated. As the GPLv3 drafts put it: "... every program is constantly threatened by software patents. We want to reduce the danger that free software when redistributors individually circumvent these same patents, thereby making programs proprietary. To prevent these actions, the GPL mitigates this danger by implying that any patent should be for free use by every user or not be licensed to anyone at all. "
- Added a clause allowing the distribution of the GPL program over peer-to-peer networks, such as BitTorrent, without accepting a license and, accordingly, without providing the software source code.
4) LGPL License
The GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL for short) is specifically designed to be able to link libraries with programs distributed under other licenses. The GNU Library General Public License came along with the GPL 2 license, so it was also given a version number 2, to indicate that the two licenses are complementary. The version numbers diverged in 1999 when the LGPL version 2.1 was released, which was renamed the Lesser General Public License to clarify its location in the GNU philosophy.
It should be noted that along with the second draft of GPL 3, the first version of the LGPL 3 appeared, developed as special case GPL 3 through the application of the additional terms section.
5) Guile License
Consists of the GNU GPL with the addition of a specific clause granting unrestricted linkage with nonfree software. As a consequence, it is not strict copyleft, but is compatible with the GNU GPL.
6) Apache License
Non-copyleft license under which the known Apache server... Allows you to modify and distribute programs both in open source and in binary form. In addition to the rights to the software product itself (to use, modify, distribute), the license requires the transfer of accompanying patents. There is a countermeasure in case of legal claims against the developer of software distributed under the Apache license, in which case the person making such claims automatically loses the rights assigned to him in relation to the program or related patents.
7) Common Public License (CPL)
this license was formulated by IBM in order to distribute its products.
The peculiarity of this license is that it allows developers to modify the source code and use it in their commercial products... Even Microsoft released its product under this license - Windows Installer XML.
8) Mozilla Public License (MPL)
Locked license that does not implement strict copyleft. Has some complex limitations that make it incompatible with the GNU GPL. For example, a module subject to the GPL cannot legally link with a module subject to the MPL.
9) SPL License
Sun Public License (SPL), equivalent to MPL with very minor changes such as replacing Netscape's name with Sun Microsystems. You can see the exact differences between MPL and SPL in two forms: for hackers (www.netbeans.org/about/legal/mpl-spl-hdiff.html).
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The topic of free, open, and, at first glance, unusual browse-wrap licenses has acquired a new meaning. To understand what has changed in the regulation, you first need to determine what the different licenses are: shrink-wrap, click-wrap, browse-wrap, free and open-source licenses, as well as new types of licenses in the sense in which they will be enshrined in part four of the Civil Code Russian Federation.
First of all, it is necessary to familiarize oneself with the history of the development of legal concepts of using computer programs (hereinafter, for convenience, the terms “program” and “software” will be used). The problem of necessity legal regulation The use of software demanded a solution, especially after the software became available to a large number of people, and manufacturers began to suffer losses due to the copying of software purchased by users. For US manufacturers, this has become the real problem also in view of the so-called first-sale doctrine formulated by the US Supreme Court in the Bobbs-Merill Co. v. Strauss. This doctrine was then enshrined in the provisions of the Copyright Act of 1909, and in the Copyright Act of 1976 (17 USC § 109 (a)), it was already refined, reinforcing the provision that the legal owner of a specific copy (that is, a copy of the result of intellectual activity protected by copyright) or another person with authority has the right to sell or otherwise dispose of this copy.
With the advent of programs widely distributed on CDs (distributions), copyright holders began to fear that such distributions would be resold by buyers (based on the doctrine of first sale). In this regard, the idea appeared to place the text of the license agreement (regulating the types of use of the program) on the packages of software products with the condition that the consumer, tearing the wrapping paper (wrapper), expresses his consent to the terms of this agreement and thereby concludes an agreement with the copyright holder of the software. Such an agreement determines the powers of the parties, and also limits the buyer's right to dispose of the program (in terms of resale). These agreements are called shrink-wrap agreements. In fact, US software manufacturers, citing § 109 (d), which stipulates that the doctrine of first sale cannot be applied if the copy is held in the absence of ownership, indicated on the wrapping paper the types of permitted uses, emphasizing that the software is “licensed, not sold "(Licensed, not sold). This licensing thesis was confirmed in Timothy S. Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc. The plaintiff (Timothy Vernor) put up for sale on eB ay the discs he bought with AutoCAD program, for which he began to receive warnings from the copyright holder. After the forced closure of his account on eB ay, he went to court, believing that he had not committed any offense, because he did not remove the wrapper, did not install the disc and could not familiarize himself with the terms of the license. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit of the United States indicated that the purchaser of the CD with the program acquires ownership of the media, and not the program itself, therefore, to determine the rights of the purchaser, you need to refer to the text of the license, which indicates the exclusive right to distribute the program, which belongs only to the organization-copyright holder. or an organization with sales authority.
The next stage in the development of software licensing was the so-called click-wrap agreements, that is, agreements, the acceptance of which is made by a click. If the user wants to use the functionality provided online, he needs to move the cursor to the "I Accept" box and click OK. In the United States, the validity of such agreements was also confirmed in the judgment in the case of Hughes v. McMenanon: "... If the courts recognize the validity of the terms of the shrink-wrap licenses, then the terms of the click-wrap agreements should be recognized as such, all the more since the user's consent with them is more expressed."
V modern world technologies, everything is automated, improved and simplified. This trend was reflected in the methods of confinement. license agreements: browse -wrap licenses have appeared, which are clickable terms of use of the site placed on the site, but the user does not explicitly agree with them (there is no separate window in which the user would put a "daw" to agree to the terms of use). The rules themselves provide that viewing or otherwise using the site implies an expression of consent to these terms.
A. I. Savelyev points out that, as a rule, all the conditions stipulated by the terms of use of the site can be divided into informational and regulatory. For example, Amazon.com's terms of use also include a procedure for filing claims of copyright infringement, a procedure for reviewing products, prohibitions on the commercial use of information posted on the site, and the use of robots to collect information on the site.
It is necessary to dwell on the consideration of the issue when, in the case of using click-wrap and browse-wrap licenses, the contract is considered concluded. Requirements for the form of the contract are contained in Art. 434 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, and a suitable justification for the method of concluding an agreement is in clause 3 of Art. 438 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation: acceptance of the offer by implicit actions. Since October 2014 the new version of clause 5 of Art. 1286 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, introducing a simplified procedure for concluding a license agreement for the use of computer programs and databases. A license agreement concluded in a simplified manner is an accession agreement, the terms of which can be stated on the purchased copy of a computer program or database or on the packaging of such a copy, as well as in electronic form.
There is one more layer of licenses characterized by certain specific features - these are free licenses. Most open source software source code(open-source) are both free. To understand what free and open source licenses are, you need to look at the history of their development. In the mid-1980s. two parallel ideological movements developed: for free software (Free Software Foundation, FSF, led by Richard Stallman) and for the creation and distribution of open source software (OSI, whose ideologues were Bruce Perens and Eric Raymond).
Richard Stallman, who pioneered the free software movement, saw it as a challenge for software developers to resist the monopoly of proprietary software. In 1985, Stallman founded the FSF, published the GNU Manifesto (which sets out the idea for the General Public License, GPL), and also developed the GNU GPL operating system. The main message of his philosophy was the distribution of software under conditions of complete freedom (which becomes not a privilege, but rather an obligation!). The GPL license, which is commonly referred to as a “copyleft license” (which means that any copy of a program created from a program licensed under the terms of the GPL must be free), is discussed in the article below.
Around the same time, a movement was born to integrate open source software into the business. In 1997, The Cathedral and the Bazaar (CatB) on software development methods was published, which analyzed the “cathedral” and “bazaar” models. The "cathedral" model implies that the source code becomes available after the release of the program, and during the development process, only the developers of the project are allowed to access the code. The "bazaar" model implies the development of code via the Internet "in sight" and with possible public participation, which is more progressive from the point of view of the author of the essay, since "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow "). In 1998 Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens founded the OSI (Open Source Initiative).
Nowadays, when referring to free licenses or free software, they mean open source software, and vice versa. However, the difference still exists, albeit at the level of the philosophy of both movements. Free software is necessarily open source, and in addition there are four freedoms:
run;
study and modify;
distribute copies of the original program;
distribute modified versions.
OSI has its own ten-point OS definition criteria set out on the organization's website:
the program must be freely redistributable (must not imply any reward);
the program must include the source code;
the program must be modifiable;
no discrimination against individuals or groups;
no discrimination in relation to areas of activity (the license should not prohibit the use of the program in a specific area of activity);
the rights associated with the program should apply to everyone to whom it is distributed;
distribution of the program as part of any software product should not depend on the distribution of the software product itself;
the license must not restrict other software;
the license must be technologically neutral.
OSI certifies licenses against specified conditions. Only licenses that meet the listed requirements and are certified by OSI can be referred to as an open-source license. The list of such OSI-approved licenses is indicated on the OSI website.
It is imperative for any user of the software to understand exactly under what conditions it can be used. Because open source software is developed through the distributed collaborative effort of many contributors and can subsequently be used commercially, the code is released publicly with the licenses that govern it. Most open source software development projects have a "trusted repository", which is a specific web source where you can get the "official version" of the program. Only creators can change the program. In this case, users can send error messages, including directly to the repository. However, the main difference is that the user himself can make any changes. Again, there is a cycle: the more capable a program becomes, the more users use it, and as a result, the user (or a set of users) becomes the user as developer.
A reasonable question arises: why bother with a free-use license, or why a license that will obviously allow you to do whatever you want with the software? Since the homeland of software is America, in accordance with the copyright requirements, users must obtain permission from the copyright holder before they launch the program. Thus, any software provided for use by an indefinite number of persons must be accompanied by a license (that is, explicit conditions for subsequent use).
The most famous hosting of free projects is GitHub, whose team launched a new site C hooseAL icense.com in 2013 to make it easier to make decisions about choosing one or another license when creating a code repository. The site briefly describes the features of the main open source licenses. On the home page registering a new repository in GitHub, a license selection form has appeared, which allows you to automatically generate a file with the selected license type so that you do not have to copy the license terms manually. Such automation was also needed because the code was often placed without an explicit indication of the license, which formally did not make it possible to use the code in projects without the author's consent.
Despite the differences in the philosophy of FSF and OSI, in both ideologies the approach to open-source is the same, because the boundaries between free licenses and open source software are blurring. FOSS and FLOSS are widely used (the only difference is the presence of the letter L), which means Free / Libre and Open-Source Software- free and open source software. This category includes both free and open source software. V English language Free means both "free" and "free", so the FOSS term ( Free and Open-Source Software), the word Libre (French for "free") was included to emphasize that it is about free software.
Having determined that differences in ideology do not affect general meaning, the procedure for licensing and using the software, hereinafter we will use the term "free licenses".
Licenses are divided into two main groups: permissive licenses, which contain a minimum of conditions (BSD, MIT, Apache), and reciprocal licenses, copyleft, which impose the obligation to distribute program modifications under the same conditions under which they were distributed. original program(GPL, LGPL, MPL). The signs of all free licenses include the following:
licenses are standardized (GNU, CC, Apache, Mozilla);
the name of the contract or agreement, to the terms of which the user joins, contains an indication of the subject itself (GNU GPL, LGPL);
the terms of use cannot be changed, you can accept them as is (as is);
the license is irrevocable.
For a more visual representation of the most famous licenses under which the code is distributed, you need to familiarize yourself with their terms.
The simplest and historically the first free license currently used is the operating system license BSD (Berkley Software Distribution License) - appeared in the early 1980s. There were three versions of the license. The original license ("old BSD", or "4-point BSD") is so called because it contained, in addition to the terms of retention of the copyright notice and the requirement to issue a paper license, also an indication of the need to mention the university in case of publication of the program characteristics v promotional materials(advertising clause). The "new BSD" ("modified BSD" or "3-point BSD") no longer contains an onerous advertising clause. The license provides complete freedom to distribute the code, under any conditions, with source texts or without them, and only cares about protecting the fair name of the author organization. BSD-type licenses are permissive licenses because they do not require the use of the same license for downstream versions. The license contains a standard set of conditions that provide for the provision of the program "as is" in the absence of any guarantees, excluding liability for any damages that may be caused by the program.
License MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is similar in content to the BSD license, but contains language that allows sublicensing (that is, the rights of each subsequent user are granted to the previous one, not the original one).
License Apache 2.0 (Apache Software Foundation) allows you to distribute derivative products under the terms of other licenses, and also allows developers to decide for themselves whether to keep the final product free and open. The only condition imposed by the Apache license is to inform the recipient of the fact that the source code is being used. Thus, in contrast to copyleft licenses, the recipient modified version does not necessarily acquire all the rights originally granted by the Apache license.
When distributing software must be placed following files v root directory: license - a file containing a copy of the Apache license text; notice - text file listing all libraries licensed under Apache, with the names of their creators.
In the process of development, all these licenses underwent certain changes, which eventually made them universally applicable (unnecessary conditions were removed, necessary ones were added). The license went a similar way Mozilla (Mozilla Public License , MPL), however, given that it was originally drafted by lawyers, everything in it was formulated more logically. If a file containing the original code or previously made modifications to it is distributed, the resulting files are licensed under the MPL terms. At the same time, a complete product can be distributed under any license. The license specifies two types of authors: the original author and the contributor. Thus, the license does not restrict the use of the software in various products and guarantees further development project.
The history of the GNU Project began in 1984, when Richard Stallman decided to create software that would be freely redistributed and modified. As a result, all the terms of use that Stallman considered necessary were expressed in the license. GPL (General Public License). The user has the right to copy, modify and distribute the source code, distribute compiled versions containing both modified and source code. At the same time, all distributed copies must contain a notice of copyright and the absence of guarantees for the software, all modified versions are subject to the terms of the GPL, all compiled versions must be accompanied by source code or contain an indication of the actual availability of the code (viable offer). For example, an indication that the code is disclosed to any person at his first request. Under the terms of the license, each new licensee is granted rights directly from the first licensor, that is, all users enter into a relationship directly with the Free Software Foundation (FSF).
The GPL has generated certain myths about its harshness. It is believed that if someone has modified the software covered by the GPL, it is their responsibility to make the software available. In fact, if there is no purpose to distribute the software, then there is no need to make the derivative software public.
At one time, the question was raised about the legality of the condition of the need to subordinate a program created on the basis of the GPL to the terms of the same license. American courts have agreed that the GPL does not violate anti-trust laws. In Wallace v. FSF Judge Daniel Tinder pointed out that "the GPL promotes and does not hinder free competition and the distribution of computer software." The plaintiff went to court to establish an injunction against the use of the GPL due to the fact that the license terms impose restrictions on commercial turnover, allegedly establishing fixed prices for software. Thus, according to the plaintiff, there was a violation of the antimonopoly law (Sherman Act). As a result, the court did not find any violations and, in fact, only strengthened by its decision the legitimacy of the license conditions.
Free licenses have existed abroad for a long time, and despite this, legal disputes still arise. In Russia, on the other hand, discussions on the use of free licenses, sometimes gaining momentum, then fading, have been going on for several years.
In 2011, within the framework of the round table "Free Licenses" or Self-Restriction of Rights? " v Russian school private law (RSPhP) discussed the fate of free licenses in Russia. The round table covered the amendments proposed at that time to the fourth part of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (announced at round table member of working group V. Kalyatin) and counterarguments of the IBM lawyer A. Savelyev, who took the position that there was no need for special regulation of free licenses. According to A. Savelyev (his views are set forth in more detail in the monograph "Software Licensing in Russia: Legislation and Practice"), the free license model is quite applicable within the framework of Russian legislation.
Ultimately, amendments to the fourth part of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation were adopted by Federal Law No. 35 of March 12, 2014 “On Amendments to Parts One, Two and Four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”. In the context of this article, the following changes are key: revision and addition of provisions on wrapping licenses (clause 5 of article 1286 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation); introduction of provisions on open licenses (Art. 1286.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation); the introduction of a new method of disposing of the exclusive right to a work of science, literature or art or an object of related rights - a public statement on the provision of free use of the result of intellectual rights to any persons on conditions determined by the copyright holder and within the period specified by him (clause 5 of article 1233 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) ...
It is necessary to analyze the innovations of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation in order to compare them with foreign institutions of free licenses. At the moment, clause 5 of Art. 1286 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation says that the conclusion of license agreements on the granting of the right to use a computer program or database is allowed by the conclusion of each user with the corresponding rightholder of an accession agreement, the terms of which are set out on the purchased copy of such a program or database or on the packaging of this copy. The beginning of the use of such programs or databases by the user, as determined by these conditions, means his consent to the conclusion of the contract. From October 1, 2014, clause 5 of Art. 1286 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation is set out in a new edition. The wording of the article provides for an algorithm for concluding a license agreement in a simplified manner, expanding the list of options for setting the conditions and indicating the possibility of the existence of conditions in electronic form.
Also from October 1, 2014, Art. 1286.1, in clause 1 of which the concept open license, which is presumed to be free of charge, unless otherwise provided by it. If the validity period of an open license is not determined, with respect to computer programs and databases, the contract is considered concluded for the entire period of validity of the exclusive right, and with respect to other types of works - for five years. In addition, the amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation determine liability for violation of the terms of open licenses, including allowing the author to demand the application of measures of protection of exclusive rights to the violator in accordance with Art. 1252 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.
From January 1, 2015, clause 5 of Art. 1233 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which provides for a public statement about the possibility of free use of a work. In fact, a new way of disposing of the exclusive right is being introduced. The rightholder may publicly make a statement on the provision of any person with the opportunity to use free of charge a work of science, literature or art belonging to him or an object of related rights on the conditions determined by him and within the period specified by him. Moreover, the legislator also regulates the procedure for making the application: by posting it on the official website of the federal executive body. It is not yet clear which body will provide the platform and will somehow keep the register. In any case, it is the mechanism of Art. 1286.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The content of the concept of an open license under the Civil Code of the Russian Federation is not identical to the concept of an open-source license. Art. 1286.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation extends its action to works of science, literature or art, computer programs and databases, while open-source licenses regulate only the scope of use of computer programs. The GC names the licensor and the licensee as parties, and in open-source licenses, there may be an original author, a derivative author, and a user. An important auxiliary mechanism introduced by the amendments to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation is clause 3 of Art. 1266 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, securing in relation to paragraph 2 of Art. 1286.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and clause 5 of Art. 1233 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation the opportunity to consent to the introduction in the future of changes, abbreviations and additions to your work, to supply it with illustrations and explanations, if necessary (correction of errors, clarification or addition of factual information, etc.), provided that this the author's intention is not distorted and the integrity of the perception of the work is not violated.
In conclusion, I would like to note that innovations in civil legislation are assessed ambiguously. If the new edition of Art. 1286 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and the introduction of Art. 1286.1 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation can be safely assessed positively, then for the assessment of clause 5 of Art. 1233 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation will take time. Practice will show whether the proposed method of disposing of the right will be in demand through the publication of a statement, or whether this construction will remain only on paper.
Federal Law No. 35-FZ of 12.03.2014 "On Amendments to Parts One, Two and Four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" // SPS "Consultant Plus".
Savelyev A.I. Software licensing in Russia: legislation and practice. - M .: Infotropic Media, 2012 .-- P. 183.
Savelyev A.I. Electronic commerce in Russia without EDS: Illusion Go Reality? // Bulletin of Civil Law 2013, No. 3 // ATP "Consultant Plus".
Nowadays, free software has already become widespread in the field of high tech... This one has great amount evidence. More and more companies are opening the source code of their projects, which further accelerates the growth of this culture.
We tend to call all open source products one term, think of them as one category. This is more convenient, but this is just a simplification. Fundamental concept open source is clear to everyone, but the rights, obligations and privileges of the parties are interpreted differently. This is reflected in free software licenses. In this article, we will look at the main types of free licenses, as well as how popular they are.
One of the most common software licenses is the GNU GPL license. Its essence is reciprocity. The license requires that if the code has been changed, then all changes must be published and available to everyone. This is called copyleft. But there are other types of licenses that are built around freedom for the developer. Such licenses impose minimal restrictions on users and do not require reciprocity from developers. Both types of licenses are free, the only difference is what exactly remains free.
Over the past decade, more than two-thirds of open source projects have been distributed under the GPL. It can be assumed that this is the default license, but still for recent years this license is losing popularity and permissive licenses are being used instead.
If we compare the share of each of the licenses according to the Black Duck rating this month, compared to January 2010, then the difference is quite obvious:
In this ranking, GPLv2 remains the most popular, but it has lost more than half of its popularity, from 46% to 19%. During the same period permitting license MIT has grown from an 8% stake to 29%. Apache License 2.0 has grown from 5% to 15%.
It can be assumed that if in 2007 we talked about free software, we meant copyleft with the GPL license, while now Fawkes has shifted towards allowing MIT and Apache. This does not mean that copyleft licenses are becoming less important, it is just that nowadays developers like permissive licenses more. Here are the conclusions we can draw from this graph:
Consolidation. These are the top 10 licenses by popularity for 2010 and 2016, all but three of them have declined in popularity. The GPL has dropped the most, while Apache and MIT have grown, as has already been discussed. But it is noteworthy that the rather popular BSD license, on the contrary, has declined. The same trend is with the ISC license. Right now, only a few licenses are the most popular and perhaps soon we will see consolidation between several licenses.
Binary choice... Historically, you have three main options for choosing a license: copyleft, permissive, and middle position. Medium licenses include LGPLv2.1 (4), LGPLv3 (2), EPL (1), MPLv1.1 (<1), CDDL (<1) и CDDLv1.1 (<1) они имеют общую долю порядка 7-8%. Теперь все больше и больше выбор сводится к копилефт или разрешающим лицензиям.
No license. No matter how much we talk about open licenses, there are still open source project repositories with code that does not use any of the licenses. Over time, the percentage of licensed repositories declines:
There are many explanations for this phenomenon, for example, the indifference of the developers. But all open source software without a license is not open source software and that's bad.
Basic Free Software Licenses
Now let's make a short description for each license from the rating so that you can navigate what they are:
GNU General Public License. It stands for General Public License. It was developed in 1988 as part of the GNU Project. How the license works, as already mentioned, all code changes must be published. The program cannot be included in proprietary software, but it can be freely distributed among users, studied and improved, subject to the publication of improvements. During development, three versions were released - GPLv1, GPLv2 and GPLv3, in which the restrictions of the gpl license for proprietary software were slightly relaxed.
MIT License. This is a license developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This is a permissive license, which means that despite the freedom of distribution, the software can be used as part of proprietary programs.
Apache License 2.0. This is another permissive license. In addition to the fact that it is allowed to completely redistribute the product, programs can be embedded in proprietary software. But you cannot change the name, and in the files you need to attach all information about changes and licenses.
Artistic License is a free license developed by The Perl Foundation. This is a copyleft license, it requires all changes to be published, and the files to describe the changes being made.
BSD Licese 2.0. University of Berkeley software license. The license is very similar to MIT, and the software can also be embedded in proprietary projects. But you cannot use the original name of the free project here.
Code Project Open 1.0.2 License. This is a license published by The Code Project developer community. It allows you to use the source code and the programs themselves for commercial purposes, the code can be changed and included in other projects.
Mozilla Public License (MPL) 1.1. This license was developed by Netscape and enhanced by the Mozilla Foundation. The code is allowed to be used in closed projects, but the modified code must be licensed under the MPL.
Microsoft Public Licese (MS-PL) is a free license that grants the right to use, distribute and modify the code. But when distributing, you need to preserve the copyright information.
Understanding the differences between the main free software licenses in one diagram:
conclusions
In this article, we looked at the main types of free licenses, as well as some of the most popular licenses and their percentage of use. I hope this information was helpful to you.
A short video on the topic of free licenses and the GPL license:
