Open Software License
Encyclopedia
The Open Software License (OSL) is a software license created by Lawrence Rosen
. The Open Source Initiative
(OSI) has certified it as an open source
license, but the Debian
project judged version 1.1 to be incompatible with the DFSG. The OSL is a copyleft
license, with a termination clause triggered by filing a lawsuit alleging patent infringement.
Many people in the free software / open source community
feel that software patent
s are harmful to software, and are particularly harmful to open source
software. The OSL attempts to counteract that by creating a pool of software which a user can use if that user does not harm it by attacking it with a patent lawsuit.
created the Open Software License, which is certified as an open source
license by the Open Source Initiative
.
The OSL is not compatible with the GPL. It has been claimed that the OSL is intended to be legally stronger than the GPL, however, unlike the GPL, the OSL has never been tested in court and is not widely used.
In its analysis of the OSL the Free Software Foundation
claims that "this requirement means that distributing OSL software on ordinary FTP sites, sending patches to ordinary mailing lists, or storing the software in an ordinary version control system, can arguably be a violation of the license and would subject violators to possible termination of the license. Thus, the OSL makes it challenging to develop software using the ordinary tools of Free Software development."
Lawrence Rosen
Lawrence Rosen is an attorney and computer specialist. He is a founding partner of Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a Californian technology law firm, specializing in intellectual property protection, licensing and business transactions for technology companies...
. The Open Source Initiative
Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...
(OSI) has certified it as an open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
license, but the Debian
Debian
Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
project judged version 1.1 to be incompatible with the DFSG. The OSL is a copyleft
Copyleft
Copyleft is a play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work...
license, with a termination clause triggered by filing a lawsuit alleging patent infringement.
Many people in the free software / open source community
Free software community
The free-software community is an informal term that refers to the users and developers of free software as well as supporters of the free-software movement. The movement is sometimes referred to as the open-source software community or a subset thereof...
feel that software patent
Software patent
Software patent does not have a universally accepted definition. One definition suggested by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure is that a software patent is a "patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program".In 2005, the European Patent Office...
s are harmful to software, and are particularly harmful to open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
software. The OSL attempts to counteract that by creating a pool of software which a user can use if that user does not harm it by attacking it with a patent lawsuit.
Author
Lawrence RosenLawrence Rosen
Lawrence Rosen is an attorney and computer specialist. He is a founding partner of Rosenlaw & Einschlag, a Californian technology law firm, specializing in intellectual property protection, licensing and business transactions for technology companies...
created the Open Software License, which is certified as an open source
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
license by the Open Source Initiative
Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...
.
Patent action termination clause
The OSL has a termination clause intended to dissuade users from filing patent infringement lawsuits:- 10) Termination for Patent Action. This License shall terminate automatically and You may no longer exercise any of the rights granted to You by this License as of the date You commence an action, including a cross-claim or counterclaim, against Licensor or any licensee alleging that the Original Work infringes a patent. This termination provision shall not apply for an action alleging patent infringement by combinations of the Original Work with other software or hardware.
Warranty of provenance
Another goal of the OSL is to warrant provenance.- 7) Warranty of Provenance and Disclaimer of Warranty. Licensor warrants that the copyright in and to the Original Work and the patent rights granted herein by Licensor are owned by the Licensor or are sublicensed to You under the terms of this License with the permission of the contributor(s) of those copyrights and patent rights.
Comparison with the LGPL/GPL
The OSL is intended to be similar to the LGPL. Note that the definition of Derivative Works in the OSL does not cover linking to OSL software/libraries so software that merely links to OSL software is not subject to the OSL license.The OSL is not compatible with the GPL. It has been claimed that the OSL is intended to be legally stronger than the GPL, however, unlike the GPL, the OSL has never been tested in court and is not widely used.
Assent to license
The restriction contained in Section 9 of the OSL reads:- If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the terms of this License.
In its analysis of the OSL the Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
claims that "this requirement means that distributing OSL software on ordinary FTP sites, sending patches to ordinary mailing lists, or storing the software in an ordinary version control system, can arguably be a violation of the license and would subject violators to possible termination of the license. Thus, the OSL makes it challenging to develop software using the ordinary tools of Free Software development."
Distribution
If the FSF claim is true then the main difference between the GPL and OSL concerns possible restrictions on redistribution. Both licenses impose a kind of reciprocity condition requiring authors of extensions to the software to license those extensions with the respective license of the original work.Patent action termination clause
The patent action termination clause, described above, is a further significant difference between the OSL and GPL.Further provisions
- Derivative Works must be distributed under the same license. (§1c)
- Covered works that are distributed must be accompanied by the source code, or access to it made available. (§3)
- No restrictions on charging money for programs covered by the license, but source code must be included or made available for a reasonable fee. (§3)
- Covered works that are distributed must include a verbatim copy of the license. (§16)
- Distribution implies (but does not explicitly state) a royalty-free license for any patents embodied in the software. (§2)
Later versions
It is optional, though common for the copyright holder to add “or any later version” to the distribution terms in order to allow distribution under future versions of the license. This term is not directly mentioned in the OSL. However, it would seem to violate section 16, which requires a verbatim copy of the license.Open software that uses the OSL
- ClearCanvas, Enterprise-ready DICOM Viewer and RIS/PACS.
- CodeIgniter v3.0, an open source PHP framework.
- NUnitLite, a lightweight version of NUnitNUnitNUnit is an open source unit testing framework for Microsoft .NET. It serves the same purpose as JUnit does in the Java world, and is one of many in the xUnit family.- Example :Example of an NUnit test fixture:using NUnit.Framework; [TestFixture]...
- MagentoMagentoMagento is an open source based ecommerce web application that was launched on March 31, 2008. It was developed by Varien with help from the programmers within the open source community but is owned solely by . Magento was built using the Zend Framework...
, an eCommerce web application. - PrestaShopPrestaShopPrestaShop is an e-commerce solution which is free for the basic kernel and open source. It supports payment gateways such as Google Checkout, PayPal and Payments Pro via API. Further payment modules are offered commercially....
, an eCommerce web application. - MulgaraMulgara (software)Mulgara is a triplestore and fork of the original Kowari project. It is Open Source, scalable, and transaction-safe. Mulgara instances can be queried via the iTQL query language and the SPARQL query language.-History:...
, a triplestoreTriplestoreA triplestore is a purpose-built database for the storage and retrieval of Resource Description Framework metadata.Much like a relational database, one stores information in a triplestore and retrieves it via a query language...
written in Java. - SparseSparseIn computer science, Sparse is a tool designed to find possible coding faults in the Linux kernel. This static analysis tool differed from other such tools in that it was initially designed to flag constructs that were only likely to be of interest to kernel developers, e.g...
, a static code analysis tool designed for the Linux kernelLinux kernelThe Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....
.
See also
- Academic Free LicenseAcademic Free LicenseThe Academic Free License is a permissive free software license written in 2002 by Lawrence E. Rosen, the general counsel of the Open Source Initiative ....
- similar, but not reciprocal license by the same author - Open source license