List of FSF approved software licences
Encyclopedia
The following is a list of software licenses which Free Software Foundation
(FSF) has approved as complying with The Free Software Definition
. They are thus, according to FSF, free software licenses.
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...
(FSF) has approved as complying with The Free Software Definition
The Free Software Definition
The Free Software Definition, written by Richard Stallman and published by Free Software Foundation , defines free software, as a matter of liberty, not price. The term "free" is used in the sense of "free speech," not of "free beer." The earliest known publication of the definition was in the...
. They are thus, according to FSF, free software licenses.
| Name | Versions | Is 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... ? |
GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... compatible License compatibility License compatibility refers to the problem with licenses applied to works subject to copyright, particularly licenses of software packages, which can contain contradictory requirements, rendering it impossible to combine source code from such packages or content from such works in order to create... ? |
Used by | Notes |
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| Academic Free License Academic Free License The Academic Free License is a permissive free software license written in 2002 by Lawrence E. Rosen, the general counsel of the Open Source Initiative .... |
3.1, 2.1 | ||||
| Affero General Public License Affero General Public License The Affero General Public License, often abbreviated as Affero GPL and AGPL , refers to two distinct, though historically related, free software licenses:... |
1 | Version 3 of the AGPL Affero General Public License The Affero General Public License, often abbreviated as Affero GPL and AGPL , refers to two distinct, though historically related, free software licenses:... is compatible with the GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... version 3. |
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| GNU Affero General Public License Affero General Public License The Affero General Public License, often abbreviated as Affero GPL and AGPL , refers to two distinct, though historically related, free software licenses:... |
3 | - GPLv3 | StatusNet | Compatible with GPL GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... version 3 only. |
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| Apache License Apache License The Apache License is a copyfree free software license authored by the Apache Software Foundation . The Apache License requires preservation of the copyright notice and disclaimer.... |
1.0, 1.1, 2.0 | - GPLv3 | Apache | Versions 1.0 and 1.1 of the Apache License are not GPL compatible | |
| Apple Public Source License Apple Public Source License The Apple Public Source License is the open source and free software license under which Apple's Darwin operating system was released. A free software and open source license was voluntarily adopted to further involve the community from which much of Darwin originated.The first version of the Apple... |
2 | Apple Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad... 's Darwin Darwin (operating system) Darwin is an open source POSIX-compliant computer operating system released by Apple Inc. in 2000. It is composed of code developed by Apple, as well as code derived from NeXTSTEP, BSD, and other free software projects.... operating system Operating system An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system... and the XNU XNU XNU is the computer operating system kernel that Apple Inc. acquired and developed for use in the Mac OS X operating system and released as free and open source software as part of the Darwin operating system... kernel. |
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| Arphic Public License | |||||
| Artistic License Artistic License The Artistic License refers most commonly to the original Artistic License , a software license used for certain free and open source software packages, most notably the standard Perl implementation and most CPAN modules, which are dual-licensed under the Artistic License and the GNU General Public... |
2.0 | Perl Perl Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular... |
According to the FSF 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... only version 2 of the Artistic License is compatible with the GPL |
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| Berkeley Database License | Berkeley DB Berkeley DB Berkeley DB is a computer software library that provides a high-performance embedded database for key/value data. Berkeley DB is a programmatic software library written in C with API bindings for C++, PHP, Java, Perl, Python, Ruby, Tcl, Smalltalk, and most other programming languages... |
Also known as the Sleepycat Software Product License. | |||
| Boost Software License Boost Software License The Boost Software License is an open-source license used by the Boost C++ Libraries. It is also a popular license for a significant number of other open source C++ projects... |
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| CeCILL CeCILL CeCILL is a free software license adapted to both international and French legal matters, in the spirit of and retaining compatibility with the GNU General Public License.... |
2 | GPL compatible since version 2 | |||
| Clarified Artistic License | NcFTP NcFTP NcFTP is an FTP client program which debuted in 1990 as the first alternative FTP client. It was created as an alternative to the standard UNIX ftp program, and offers a number of additional features and greater ease of use.... |
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| Common Development and Distribution License Common Development and Distribution License Common Development and Distribution License is a free software license, produced by Sun Microsystems, based on the Mozilla Public License , version 1.1.... |
Sun Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982... 's OpenSolaris OpenSolaris OpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software... |
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| Common Public License Common Public License In computing, the CPL is a free software / open-source software license published by IBM. The Free Software Foundation and Open Source Initiative have approved the license terms of the CPL.... |
1.0 | ||||
| Cryptix General License Cryptix General License The Cryptix General License is in use by the Cryptix project, well known for their Java Cryptography Extension. It is a modified version of the BSD license, with similarly liberal terms. The Free Software Foundation states that it is a permissive free software license compatible with the GNU... |
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| EU DataGrid Software License | |||||
| Eclipse Public License Eclipse Public License The Eclipse Public License is an open source software license used by the Eclipse Foundation for its software. It replaces the Common Public License and removes certain terms relating to litigations related to patents.... |
1.0 | Eclipse Eclipse (software) Eclipse is a multi-language software development environment comprising an integrated development environment and an extensible plug-in system... |
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| eCos license | 2.0 | eCos ECos eCos is an open source, royalty-free, real-time operating system intended for embedded systems and applications which need only one process with multiple threads. It is designed to be customizable to precise application requirements of run-time performance and hardware needs... |
GPL compatible since version 2. | ||
| Eiffel Forum License Eiffel Forum License The Eiffel Forum License is a free software license written by , the Non-Profit International Consortium for Eiffel. Version 2 of the license, the latest , is the first version to be GPL compatible. EFLv2 has been approved by the OSI, and is approved as a free software license by the FSF.- License... |
2 | GPL compatible since version 2. | |||
| Expat License | Expat Expat (XML) In computing, Expat is a stream-oriented XML 1.0 parser library, written in C. As one of the first available open-source XML parsers, Expat has found a place in many open-source projects. Such projects include the Apache HTTP Server, Mozilla, Perl, Python and PHP... |
Also known as the MIT License MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms... |
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| GNU General Public License GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project.... |
1, 2, 3 | GNU GNU GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"... , Linux kernel Linux kernel The 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.... , MySQL MySQL MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My... |
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| GNU Lesser General Public License GNU Lesser General Public License The GNU Lesser General Public License or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation . It was designed as a compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License or GPL and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License... |
2, 2.1, 3 | glibc GNU C Library The GNU C Library, commonly known as glibc, is the C standard library released by the GNU Project. Originally written by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU operating system, the library's development has been overseen by a committee since 2001, with Ulrich Drepper from Red Hat as the lead... and many other libraries, themes and icons |
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| IBM Public License IBM Public License The IBM Public License is a free software / open-source software license written and sometimes used by IBM.It is approved by the Open Source Initiative and is described as a "free software license" by the Free Software Foundation .... |
1.0 | ||||
| Intel Open Source License Intel Open Source License The Intel Open Source license is identical to the BSD license with the following section addedThe extra section does not add to the terms of the license, rather it reminds users of U.S. export laws... (OSI) |
As published by OSI. | ||||
| Interbase Public License | 1.0 | ||||
| ISC license (Internet Systems Consortium license) | 2 | BIND BIND BIND , or named , is the most widely used DNS software on the Internet.On Unix-like operating systems it is the de facto standard.Originally written by four graduate students at the Computer Systems Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley , the name originates as an acronym from... , OpenBSD OpenBSD OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995... |
ISC License listed as GPL-compatible by the FSF. | ||
| Jabber Open Source License | 1.0 | This license has been voluntarily retired from OSI. | |||
| LaTeX Project Public License LaTeX Project Public License The LaTeX Project Public License is a software license originally written for the LaTeX system. Software distributed under the terms of the LPPL can be regarded as free software, however it is not copylefted.... |
1.2, 1.3a | LaTeX LaTeX LaTeX is a document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program. Within the typesetting system, its name is styled as . The term LaTeX refers only to the language in which documents are written, not to the editor used to write those documents. In order to... |
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| GNAT Modified General Public License GNAT Modified General Public License The GNAT Modified General Public License is a version of the GNU General Public License specifically modified for the generic feature found in the Ada programming language.The modification is as follows:... |
GNAT GNAT GNAT is a free-software compiler for the Ada programming language which forms part of the GNU Compiler Collection. It supports all versions of the language, i.e. Ada 2005, Ada 95 and Ada 83; it allows already some constructs of Ada 2012... runtime Run-time system A run-time system is a software component designed to support the execution of computer programs written in some computer language... toolkit |
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| License of Netscape Javascript | |||||
| Vim Vim (text editor) Vim is a text editor written by Bram Moolenaar and first released publicly in 1991. Based on the vi editor common to Unix-like systems, Vim is designed for use both from a command line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface... |
6.1 and later | Vim Vim (text editor) Vim is a text editor written by Bram Moolenaar and first released publicly in 1991. Based on the vi editor common to Unix-like systems, Vim is designed for use both from a command line interface and as a standalone application in a graphical user interface... |
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| zlib License Zlib License The zlib License is a permissive free software license which defines the terms under which the zlib and libpng software libraries can be distributed. It is also used by other free software packages.... |
zlib Zlib zlib is a software library used for data compression. zlib was written by Jean-Loup Gailly and Mark Adler and is an abstraction of the DEFLATE compression algorithm used in their gzip file compression program. Zlib is also a crucial component of many software platforms including Linux, Mac OS X,... |
Also known as the libpng license. | |||
| License of the iMatix Standard Function Library | |||||
| License of xinetd | xinetd Xinetd In computer networking, xinetd, the eXtended InterNET Daemon, is an open-source super-server daemon which runs on many Unix-like systems and manages Internet-based connectivity... |
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| Lucent Public License Lucent Public License The Lucent Public License is an open-source license created by Lucent Technologies. It has been released in two versions: Version 1.0 and 1.02.... |
1.02 | Plan 9 Plan 9 from Bell Labs Plan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system. It was developed primarily for research purposes as the successor to Unix by the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs between the mid-1980s and 2002... |
Also known as the Plan 9 License. | ||
| MIT License MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms... |
X.org X.Org X.Org refers to several things related to the X Window System:* X.Org, the organisation in charge of X standards from 1999 * The X.Org Foundation, a community-based foundation which took over X stewardship in 2004... |
Also known as the X11 License. | |||
| Modified BSD license BSD licenses BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses. The original license was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix-like operating system after which it is named.... |
FreeBSD FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant... and OpenBSD OpenBSD OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995... |
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| Mozilla Public License Mozilla Public License The Mozilla Public License is a free and open source software license. Version 1.0 was developed by Mitchell Baker when she worked as a lawyer at Netscape Communications Corporation and version 1.1 at the Mozilla Foundation... (MPL) |
(limited) | Mozilla Mozilla Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software.... and Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers... |
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| Netizen Open Source License | 1.0 | ||||
| Netscape Public License Netscape Public License The Netscape Public License is a free software license, the license under which Netscape Communications Corporation originally released Mozilla.... |
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| Nokia Open Source License | |||||
| Open Software License Open Software License The Open Software License is a software license created by Lawrence Rosen. The Open Source Initiative has certified it as an open source license, but the Debian project judged version 1.1 to be incompatible with the DFSG... |
1.0 | ||||
| OpenLDAP License | 2.3, 2.7 | OpenLDAP OpenLDAP OpenLDAP Software is a free, open source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol developed by the OpenLDAP Project. It is released under its own BSD-style license called the OpenLDAP Public License. LDAP is a platform-independent protocol. Several common Linux distributions... |
GPL compatible since version 2.7 | ||
| OpenSSL license OpenSSL OpenSSL is an open source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. The core library implements the basic cryptographic functions and provides various utility functions... |
OpenSSL OpenSSL OpenSSL is an open source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. The core library implements the basic cryptographic functions and provides various utility functions... |
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| Original BSD license BSD licenses BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses. The original license was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix-like operating system after which it is named.... |
NetBSD NetBSD NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,... |
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| PHP License PHP License The PHP License is the software license under which the PHP scripting language is released. The PHP License is a non-copyleft free software license according to the Free Software Foundation and an open source license according to the Open Source Initiative... |
3.0 | PHP PHP PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document... |
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| Phorum License | 2.0 | ||||
| Public domain Public domain Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all... |
- | SQLite SQLite SQLite is an ACID-compliant embedded relational database management system contained in a relatively small C programming library. The source code for SQLite is in the public domain and implements most of the SQL standard... |
The public domain isn't truly a license, per se. The definition of what is in the public domain varies from country to country, as is whether or not the author of a work can place his/her work voluntarily in the public domain. If a work is in the public domain, (usually) anyone can use, copy, modify, redistribute, or otherwise exploit the work for any purpose as there is no copyright at all. | ||
| CC0 | 1.0 | CC0 isn't truly a license, but a recommended way of dedicating software to the public domain Public domain Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all... . |
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| Python Software Foundation License Python Software Foundation License The Python Software Foundation License is a BSD-style, permissive free software license which is compatible with the GNU General Public License . Its primary use is for distribution of the Python project software... |
1.6a2, 1.6b1 - 2.0/2.1, 2.0.1/2.1.1 | Python Python (programming language) Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive... |
This license replaces the original Python License Python License The Python License is a deprecated computer software license created by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives . It was used for versions 1.6 and 2.0 of the Python programming language, both released in the year 2000... which was not GPL compatible |
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| Q Public License Q Public License The Q Public License is a non-copyleft license, created by Trolltech for its free edition of the Qt. It was used until Qt 3.0, as Trolltech toolkit version 4.0 was released under GPL version 2... |
1.0 | TurboHercules | It was used until Qt 3.0, Qt version 4.x is now GPL (version 2 or 3), and LGPL 2.1 | ||
| Standard ML of New Jersey Copyright License | |||||
| Sun Industry Standards Source License Sun Industry Standards Source License The Sun Industry Standards Source License is now a retired free and open source license, recognized as such by the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative . Under SISSL, developers could modify and distribute source code and derived binaries freely. Furthermore, developers could... |
1.0 | Sun Grid Engine Sun Grid Engine Oracle Grid Engine, previously known as Sun Grid Engine , previously known as CODINE or GRD , is an open source batch-queuing system, developed and supported by Sun Microsystems... |
Sun has voluntarily retired this license. | ||
| Sun Public License Sun Public License The Sun Public License is a software license that applies to some open-source software released by Sun Microsystems . It has been approved by the Free Software Foundation as a free software license, and by the Open Source Initiative as an open source license... |
This license seems now to have been "dropped" by Sun in favor of the new CDDL license, which is also derived from the MPL. | ||||
| Condor Public License | |||||
| Ruby License | Ruby Ruby (programming language) Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto... |
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| University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License | 1.0 | Low Level Virtual Machine Low Level Virtual Machine The Low Level Virtual Machine is a compiler infrastructure written in C++ that is designed for compile-time, link-time, run-time, and "idle-time" optimization of programs written in arbitrary programming languages... |
May also have been used by NCSA HTTPd NCSA HTTPd NCSA HTTPd was a web server originally developed at the NCSA by Robert McCool and others. It was among the earliest web servers developed, following Tim Berners-Lee's CERN httpd, Tony Sanders' Plexus server, and some others. It was for some time the natural counterpart to the Mosaic web browser in... |
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| Vita Nuova Liberal Source License | |||||
| W3C Software Notice and License W3C Software Notice and License The W3C Software Notice and License is a permissive free software licence used by software released by the World Wide Web Consortium, like Amaya. The license is a permissive license, compatible with the GNU General Public License.-Software using the License:... |
libwww Libwww libwww is a highly-modular client-side web API for Unix and Windows, and is also the name of the reference implementation of this API.... |
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| X11 License MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software provided all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms... |
X.org X.Org Server X.Org Server refers to the X server release packages stewarded by the X.Org Foundation,which is hosted by freedesktop.org, and grants... |
This is the FSF's preferred name for the MIT License. | |||
| WTFPL WTFPL The WTFPL is an infrequently used, extremely permissive free software license. The original Version 1.0 license, released March 2000, was written by Banlu Kemiyatorn who used it for Window Maker artwork. Samuel “Sam” Hocevar, a French programmer who was the Debian project leader from 17 April... |
2 | ||||
| XFree86 1.1 License | 1.1 | - GPLv3 | XFree86 XFree86 XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System. It was originally written for Unix-like operating systems on IBM PC compatibles and is now available for many other operating systems and platforms. It is free and open source software under the XFree86 License version 1.1. It is developed by the... |
This license is GPL 3 compatible. The XFree86 Project contests GPL 2 incompatibility. | |
| Zend License | 2.0 | Parts of PHP PHP PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document... |
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| Zope Public License Zope Public License Zope Public License is a free software license, used primarily for the Zope application server software. The license is similar to the well-known BSD license, however the ZPL also adds clauses prohibiting trademark use and requiring documentation of all changes.-External links:* v2.0 at the Open... |
1, 2.0 | Zope Zope Zope is a free and open-source, object-oriented Web application server written in the Python programming language. Zope stands for "Z Object Publishing Environment", and was the first system using the now common object publishing methodology for the Web... |
GPL compatible since version 2.0 | ||
See also
- Comparison of free software licenses
- Free software licenses
- Open source license
- List of software licenses