Issue 23/2011 http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/newsletters/june2011.pdf June Supporting open source in education and research http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk pringhasmostdefinitelysprungandwehavelotstotellyouaboutinthis, SourJunenewsletter.Ourfeaturedarticlethismonthasks,‘What kind of In thIs Issue: licence should I choose?’Therearemanyfreeandopensourcesoftware licences,andwhiletheyallbroadlyattempttofacilitatethesamethings, l What kind of licence theyalsohavesomedifferences.Inthisarticle,RowanWilsongroupssome should I choose? ofthemajordifferencesintocategoriesthatshouldhelpyouunderstand whichdecisionsyoushouldtakeinordertoselectalicenceforyourcode. l Rave in Context OurfirstblogpostcomesfromRossGardler,whotellsusaboutapractical l An open letter to OSS demonstrationofopennessasasustainableacademicresearchpractice.Our developers: thank you! secondblogpostisaguestpostfromDonnaReish,whosaysaverypersonal thankyoutotheopensourcecommunitybydescribingwhatadifferenceopen sourceapplicationsmaketoherprofessionallife. l FAQs Itlookslikethenextfewmonthscouldbeprettybusy,asthereareafairfewopen sourceeventscomingup.Dotakealookattheeventssectiontoseeifthereisanything thatcatchesyoureye. ElenaBlanco,ContentEditor,[email protected] Onlinenewsletteravailableat: http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/ stay up-to-date newsletters/june2011.pdf OSSWatchnewsfeed News from OSS Watch http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/rss/osswatchnews.rss Xamarin:Novell’sformeropensourcestrategistto JISCmobilewebsitelaunchedinconjunctionwith becomeCEO MyMobileBristol NatFriedmanhasjoinednewventureXamarinasthe TheMyMobileBristolprojecthasrecentlybeenworking company’sCEOandco-founder.Friedmanhadpreviously withtheJISCcommunicationsteamtoproduceanew co-foundedXimian-theGNOMEcompanythatwastaken betaservice.ThewebsitewasproducedusingtheMobile overbyNovellin2003-andhadleftNovellinearly2011. CampusAssistantsoftwarethattheMyMobileBristol Inhislatestannouncement,Friedmansaid,‘Webelieve projectisdeveloping. thatmobiledevelopmentisinitsfirststagesandthatwe http://mymobilebristol.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/2011/05/20/introducing-m-jisc-ac-uk/ candeliveranincrediblemobiledevelopmentexperience -farbetterthanwhatexiststoday.’ Opensourcesoftware,LinuxtosaveSantos$2.5m http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Xamarin-Novell-s-former-open- source-strategist-to-become-CEO-1250766.html AustralianoilandgasexplorationcompanySantoshas switchedonacriticalITupgradesettosavemorethan ZarafaSummerCamp2011programmepublished $2.5millionbyusingopensourcesoftwareandLinux- basedsystems.Aconsolidationofhardwareandsoftware MessagingandcollaborationspecialistZarafahas willseethecompanyreduceitspowerconsumptionby publishedtheprogrammeforthisyear’stwo-day 300,000kWhoursayear.PowerfulIBMserversrunning internationalSummerCampevent.Theannualeventwill RedHatEnterpriseLinuxsoftwareareattheheartofnew takeplaceon30Juneand1JulyinKerkradeinThe OSSWatchonline systemsthatwillhelphundredsofgeoscientistsscourfor Netherlands. blackgold. http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Zarafa-SummerCamp-2011- OSSWatchblog programme-published-1250464.html http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/software-switch-to-save- santos-25m/story-e6frgakx-1226057034041 ContactOSSWatch DocumentFoundationappointsEngineeringSteering Committee GoogleformsWebMpatentpool Googlehasformedagroupoftechnologycompanieswho OSSWatchtwitter Witharound120developersnowworkingonLibreOffice codeonaregularbasis,TheDocumentFoundationhas agreenottoasserttheirpatentsagainstothermembers announcedtheappointmentofanEngineeringSteering usingGoogle’snewopenvideostandardWebM.The OSSWatchisfundedbythe Committee(ESC)todirectandcoordinatetheeffortsof groupincludessomemembersoftheMPEGLAH264 JointInformation thedevelopers.TheESCwillmeetweeklybytelephoneto patentpool,suchasSamsungandLG.Thisisparticularly SystemsCommittee discusstheprogressofdevelopmenteffortsinmeeting significantastheMPEGLAisthreateningtoformarival LibreOffice’stime-basedreleasescheduleandto patentpooltocollectroyaltiesonpatentsitsaysare coordinatedevelopmentactivitieswithintheorganisation. implementedwithinGoogle’sstandard. http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20056579-264.html http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Document-Foundation-appoints- Engineering-Steering-Committee-1248364.html OSSWatchonline OSSWatchblog ContactOSSWatch OSSWatchtwitter http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk http://osswatch.jiscinvolve.org [email protected] http://twitter.com/osswatch OSSWatch,ResearchTechnologiesService,OxfordUniversityComputingServices,13BanburyRoad,OxfordOX26NN,[email protected] ©2007-2011UniversityofOxford.CreativeCommonsAttribution-ShareAlike2.0England&Waleslicence What kind of licence should I choose? Blog Fullarticlecanbefoundathttp://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/licdiff.xml herearemanyfreeandopensourcesoftwarelicences, ‘permissive’licences.Whiletheoriginalcodecovered Tandwhiletheyallbroadlyattempttofacilitatethe byapermissivelicencestaysunderthatpermissive samethings,theyalsohavesomedifferences.Some licence,anymodificationstoitcanbereleasedunder ofthemajordifferencescanbegroupedtogetherinto anylicencethatthemodifierchooses,opensourceor categories,andthisdocumentactsasanintroductionto not.Thismeansthatpermissivelylicensedcodecanform thesecategories.Havingreadthisdocument,youshould thebasisofclosedsourceproducts.Somearguethat beabletounderstandwhichdecisionsyoushouldtakein thismakespermissivelicencesmore‘free’thancopyleft ordertoselectalicenceforyourcode. licences,inthatpeoplewhomodifythecodearefreerto choosewhattheydowithit.Othersarguethatthelackof 1.Stayingmainstream arequirementthatmodificationsbeopensourcemeans JUNE thatpermissivelicencesareless‘free’.Asdiscussionsof TheOpenSourceInitiative-anon-profitorganisation ideasoffreedom-andparticularlytheideaofcompulsion formedtoeducateaboutopensource-maintainsalistof tobefree-areessentiallyphilosophicaltheyfalloutside licencesthattheyseeasbeing‘popularandwidelyused thescopeofthisdocument.Itisworthnoting,however, orwithstrongcommunities’.Thepurposeofthelististo thattherearedifferingviewswithinthefreeandopen highlightthoselicenceswhicharelikelytoanswerthe sourceworldaboutwhat‘free’inthesenseoffreedom needsofmanylicensorsnewtoopensource.Thelistalso reallymeans. helpstomakethetaskofopensourcelicenceselection seemmanageable;thefulllistofmorethansixtylicences canbedaunting,andcontainsmanylicenceswhichare Example: inmostwayssimilarinfunctiontooneormoreofthe ‘popularandwidelyused’listedlicences.Usingalicence As part of her astrophysics research Anne creates a thatmanyothersusehassomeadvantages.Iftheterms standard for recording a specific kind of complex data ofthelicencearechallenged,therewillbealargerpool object. She also writes code to create and parse files oflicensorswithaninterestinfundingaresponsetothe that adhere to the standard. Anne is keen that the challenge.Usingoneofthe‘popularandwidelyused’ standard becomes widely used, as minority standards are far less useful. Therefore she decides that she will release the code under a permissive licence. Anne All free and open source licences believes that by allowing creators of both closed and allow others to make modified open source projects to use the same code to create versions of your code, and to and read the data objects, uptake and efficacy of the make these modified versions standard will both be helped along. available to others. 3.Strongandweakcopyleft Shouldyouchoosetoincludecopyleftlicensingconditions onreuseofyourcode,thereisafurtherchoicetobe licencesalsomakesitmorelikelythatyourlicenseeswill made.Copyleftlicencesarebroadlydividedintotwo alreadybefamiliarwiththetermsyouareoffering.Equally ‘strengths’:strongandweak.Strongcopyleftconditions though,licensorsshouldnotfeel‘lockedin’toonlyusing dictatethatwhenapieceofsoftwarecontainssomeof a‘popularandwidelyused’licence.Someofthefeatures yourcode,thesoftwareasawholemustbedistributed wediscussbelowareonlypresentinthewiderpoolofall OSSWatchonline underyourlicence,ifitisdistributedatall.Theeffectof OSI-approvedlicences. thiswillbethatthesourcecodetoalladditionsmadeto thecodewillbeavailable. OSSWatchblog 2.Permissiveandcopyleft Weakcopyleft,ontheotherhand,meansthatwhen Allfreeandopensourcelicencesallowotherstomake softwarecontainssomeofyourcode,somepartsof ContactOSSWatch modifiedversionsofyourcode,andtomakethese thesoftwaremustbedistributedunderyourlicence, modifiedversionsavailabletoothers.Thelicenceyou ifthesoftwareisdistributedatall.Otherpartsmaybe OSSWatchtwitter choosecanmakeconditionsabouthowthishappens- distributedunderotherlicences,eventhoughtheyform specificallywhatlicencescanbeusedonthesemodified partofaworkwhichis-asawhole-amodifiedversion versions.Theseconditionscanhelpkeepyourcode ofyourcode.Oneeffectofthiswillbethatthesource OSSWatchisfundedbythe free,buttheycanalsoputsomepeopleoffreusingyour codetosomeadditionsmadebyotherstoyoursoftware JointInformation code.Suchconditionsaresometimescalled‘copyleft’ maynotbeavailableasopensource.Anothereffectmay SystemsCommittee conditions,inaplayontheword‘copyright’. bethatpeoplemayfinditeasierto‘productise’yourcode Opensourcelicencesthatdonotseektocontrolhow byaddingclosedcomponentsandsellinglicencesto modifiedcodeislicensedareoftenreferredtoas theseclosedparts. Fullarticlecanbefoundathttp://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/licdiff.xml OSSWatchonline OSSWatchblog ContactOSSWatch OSSWatchtwitter http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk http://osswatch.jiscinvolve.org [email protected] http://twitter.com/osswatch OSSWatch,ResearchTechnologiesService,OxfordUniversityComputingServices,13BanburyRoad,OxfordOX26NN,[email protected] ©2007-2011UniversityofOxford.CreativeCommonsAttribution-ShareAlike2.0England&Waleslicence