Various Open Source Licenses

Licensing photo created by rawpixel.com - www.freepik.com

The terms of use for the work are set out in the license accompanying the work. Most countries impose automatic copyright on each work, in other words, when a work is not licensed, the intellectual property rights are only owned by the creator of the work. Registered in the State of Indonesia, as stated in Law Number 20 of Copyright Number 19 of 2002. Copyright or Copyright in Indonesia, is the exclusive right of the creator or recipient to publish or reproduce the work or its distribution permit without prejudice to the limitations of laws and regulations applicable.

Depending on the open source license, not all open source software can be used freely and absolutely. Even though the source code is open and allows modification, there are still limitations set by the owner/builder according to the license used. Basically, the license regulates what can be tried, what cannot be tried, and what users must try on the software. Therefore it is better for us to identify several types of licenses for open source applications that are commonly used. Below we describe some of the popular open source licenses along with a short explanation of what we can and cannot do with these licensed products.

Apache License

The Apache license is a license for free software written by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). This license distributes patent usage rights directly from software developers to users.

In this licensed software, users can use it for commercial purposes, users can redistribute, modify, use patents, and can use different licenses from the original software. Users may also use and modify the software individually without any obligation to redistribute it. The user must include this license in any derivative software distributed, include the original copyright of the author, and include any attempted changes (if modified). Users may not use trademarks, logos, or on behalf of the author in the redistribution process and have no right to sue the author in case of damage to the software.

GNU General Public License/GPL

This license is the most widely used license for free software to use. Under the GPL v3.0 license, software derived or distributed must use the same license type (i.e. GPL). Users can use this licensed software for commercial purposes, users can redistribute, modify, use patents and use individually without any obligation to redistribute. The user must include the source code of the library he modified (not the source code of the entire program), include the license, include the original copyright of the author, and include any attempted changes (if modified). The user has no right to sue the author in case of software malfunctions.

The GPL v2.0 license is the same as the GPL v3.0 except that users have no right to claim patents from coders. There is also the Affero General Public License/AGPL v3.0, which is the same license as the GPL v3.0 that was specifically created to enable users to use software distributed over networks such as the web and online services.

MIT License

The MIT license is a free software license, which originates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This license is concise and to the point. This license allows users to apply anything to program code like the Apache License. This license only requires the user to include the license and copyright of the author in the redistributed code and there are no restrictions on using the trademarks of the original author. Not only that, the user also has no right to sue the creator if there is damage to the software.

Artistic License 2.0

This license is generally used by the Perl community. This license has the same freedoms, terms and limitations as the MIT License. Not only that, this license requires the user who modified the software to also include the original type in the distribution. Not only that, the name of the modified software must be different from the name of the original software.

BSD License

This license gives the user the freedom to apply anything to the code as long as it includes the license and copyright.

GNU Lesser General Public License/LGPL v3.0

This license is the same as the GPL v3.0 license, with the slight accumulation of permission that the modified library code must use the same license, but programs that use the library code do not have to use the same license.

Mozilla Public License 2. 0/MPL v2.0

This license is issued by the Mozilla Foundation. This license is similar to the GPL license. Any modified program code will remain under this license at all times. However, use of program code may be combined with an exclusively licensed program as long as the code file is MPL licensed. Additionally, binary programs may be distributed under a proprietary license as long as the source code remains under the MPL license.

Microsoft Public License/Ms-PL

This license allows the user to do anything with the software. Users are required to include copyrights and licenses in distributed software. Not only that, the distribution of modified software may not be in the name of the trademark or the name of the original author.

Unlicense/Public Domain Dedication

As explained at the beginning of the article that by default every work is protected by copyright laws. There is also if we want our work to be used by anyone without any restrictions, we can use Unlicense. Revocation of this license intends to make our work in the public domain, that is, the work is no longer protected by copyright laws. Public domain works are owned by the public, and cannot be owned by individuals.

Do What The F*ck You Want To Public License/WTFPL v2.0

This license is almost a kind of public domain. This license is very permissive, meaning that users can do anything they want to try in the program code. But it should be noted that this license is not a trademark license. It has nothing to do with the original coder and modified code must not use the same name as the code/program name created by the previous author.