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Licenses
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List of licenses
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CC0 Public Domain Dedication
CERN OHL
The CERN Open Hardware License (CERN OHL) is a license used in open-source hardware projects (OSHW).
Creative Commons Attribution
Design Science License
- Not maintained anymore
- License text (English)
FreeBSD Documentation License
- author: FreeBSD Project
- reference URL: http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-doc-license.html
Although especially written for the FreeBSD project, this license shows you how to draft a very simple non-copyleft license for documentation works.
Free Art License
- Aliases: License Arte Libre, FAL, LAL
- Current version: 1.3
- author: Copyleft Attitude
- License text (English, version 1.3)
- License text (French)
GNU Free Documentation License
- Aliases: GNU FDL, GFDL, FDL
- Current version: 1.3
- License text (English)
Invariant sections
Invariant sections are a special provision of the GFDL which, if used, prevent anyone from modifying the parts of the work which are defined as "invariant". The Free Software Foundation finds it useful to protect some special "non-functional" parts of the work, like a statement of intent (the motivation for invariant sections was, allegedly, to prevent the GNU Manifesto to be removed or modified in GNU documentations).
We believe, however, that freedom should apply to all kind of works, and that what is "functional" in one situation can be "artistic" in another - and vice-versa. Consequently, a work using invariant sections to forbid some kinds of modifications to the work cannot be considered completely free.
Unless additional permissions are granted, all FDL works contain unmodifiable sections which aren't called Invariant Sections, such as a copy of the license embedded in the document itself.
GNU General Public License
- Aliases: GNU GPL, GPL
- Current version: 3.0
- Author: Free Software Foundation
- License text (English)
The GNU GPL is, according to various statistics, probably the most used free software license. It was also the first license to implement the concept of copyleft, guaranteeing that "GPL'ed" free software cannot become, or take part in, non-free software.
Although the GPL is primarily intended for software programs, it is worded so as to apply to many different kinds of works. The main condition for the GPL to be applicable to a type of work is that it admits the notion of a preferred form of a work for making modifications to it (be it source code in a computer language, music score notation, digital graphics under a format retaining structure, etc.). For example, there are many occurrences of text or graphics released under the GPL.
Lizenz für Freie Inhalte
- Aliases: LFFI
- License Text (German)
AFAIK only used by the german portal neppstar for free music and video. Anyway, it seems to be a valid free license.
MirOS Licence
- Aliases: MirBSD, MirOS
- reference URL: http://mirbsd.de/MirOS-Licence
- other conformance: DFSG, OSD (OSI approved), OKD (OKFN approved)
This licence is intended as the European variant of the BSD/MIT licences, but applicable as widely as possible. It shifts focus away from code/software by using the generic term “work” (of authorship), and as such can be used for mostly everything (code, documentation, audiovisual content, possibly others; for example fonts in jurisdictions where they are protected by copyright law). It’s intended as a permissive or "Copycenter" licence (so no copyleft, as that would be a restriction; basically “do what you want, leave me alone, but give due credits”) with as few strings as possible attached (so no “forced freedom” anti-DRM clauses, etc.) and weighs in less than one Kibibyte. Most permissions are enumerated, but the grant is not limited to them. Attribution is required by retaining the copyright notices, licence and disclaimer (this is not a copyleft though) or reproducing it in the accompanying documents (the BSD world is all about credits being given but freedom being unrestricted and not enforced). The disclaimer’s wording has been modified to meet certain European law requirements.
MIT License
- author: MIT
- reference URL: http://www.opensource.org/osi3.0/licenses/mit-license.php
This license is arguably the simplest form of the BSD-like licenses for software. All the license, except for the no-warranty statement, is condensed in two short paragraphs.
There are variants, like the current BSD license which has an additional provision forbidding endorsement of derived works using the name of the original authors.
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