Open Source Licenses

This article is to help anyone considering Option Open source and wondering about licenses. I have been playing around with some Open source softwares in the past few weeks and have had the opportunity to delve into license types. So this is meant to be a good jump start article for anyone new to this.

First of all, not all open source licenses are the same. You may want to be especially choosy about your open source options if you are a corporate, as you may need to protect your investments in open source and consider commercial restrictions that some open source licenses may place. The same is true for anyone building an open source developer community (and a commercial business model around this) as once the community is established it is very difficult to change licensing.

Open source licenses are based on the concept of copyleft. Copyleft is just a play of the word copyright so as to convey its opposite views on (re)distribution. Copyright protects the intellectual property of the creator(s) restricting anybody else from distribution and adaption. Copyleft on the other hand protects the public (all recipients of copyleft licensed products) so that they receive the same rights as the creators. Thus, typically under copyleft software licensing, anyone who modifies the software and distributes it to the public must give up private ownership of any changes made and must ensure that the public receives the same freedom to change source code.

Copyleft can be enforced to several degrees in open source licensing thus giving 4 different categories of open source licenses:

1. Strong copyleft licenses
2. Weak copyleft liceses
3. No copyleft licenses
4. Others (a mix of other three types)

Browse the Open Source Initiative (OSI) which is great source for a description of the popular types of licenses. Two of the most common open source licenses are the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license and the General Public License (GPL). You may want to read these in particular from the OSI.

I am more inclined to no copyleft open source software. Basically no copyleft open source software licenses places no restrictions on the adopter and developer community who are free to use the software as they like and make changes as they like. Strict copyleft open source licenses will require you to pass on the rights of all contributions to the public. And the rights to your derivative cannot override the originator’s rights. I think this works against its more widespread adoption. I am a fan of the Apache Software Foundation and it’s Apache License v2.0 which is a no copyleft type of license. Basically it gives each contributor a worldwide copyright license to redistribute, even sublicense and sell the software or any of its derivates in source or object form.

Note that open source software doesn’t have to be free; one can still sell open source software for a price. Also note that choosing open source software doesn’t mean zero cost implementation;  one should consider the costs involved in open source software training, maintenance and support services. Open source software lowers the cost of ownership it doesn’t mean zero cost. There are a number of open source softwares now available. I will be scanning the market next to understand business models and strategies by studying popular open source software providers. Meanwhile, check out this another great resource with useful practical considerations for open source software.

Option Open Source!

There was interesting news the other day – the UK government is accelerating its use of open source software in public services. The estimated savings from open source options is said to be in the range of £600 million a year. The drive behind this move seems to be some high-profile IT failures in the recent years. And given the current economic climate, perhaps open source is one way to ensure that public money is spent right!

This move is expected to bring some brute selling and price slashing from proprietary providers – the usual suspects such as Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Adobe and IBM et al. won’t just be sitting by the sidelines. (You can read the news piece here)

For those who are in the know of all things open source, this news is perhaps no surprise. Over the past few years open source solutions have made inroads in public services across many countries. Within the EU, governments of Germany, France and Spain have shown decreasing tolerance for proprietary lock-ins and are reshaping procurement practices to include more open source – I remember reading about Munich’s migration to open source operating system sometime back in 07-08.

I have been dabbling with open source software in the past few months. And I am both excited and frustrated by it. I will recount my experiences and lessons learnt in a series of posts following soon.

Meanwhile I can’t help but think about what open source can do in the re/insurance world to which I am connected. There have been some high-profile failures in the London market in the past few years (Kinnect?). And there is one initiative right now for a new exchange in the market – the resourcing decision for which has thrown open more questions than provide answers! Anyway, if you are an open source junkie or if you are a champion looking to exchange experiences then talk to me.

Also browse this interesting resource:  it’s the Open Source Observatory and Repository for European Administrators (OSOR.eu) which has communities discussing option open source! and also has guidelines on open source procurement. I was impressed by the Project Tree which shows a number of open source projects that are already underway. Happy reading