There have been a number of comments made about the license
change of osCommerce 3.x to the BSD. This post aims to dispel some of the
confusion around the change and will hopefully be the primer for a proper FAQ
on www.oscommerce.com when
I have some time. If there are any questions you have that you would like
answered post them here as comments and I will make sure to include them in the
official FAQ.
Q. Is the BSD License used
compatible with the GNU General Public License?
A. Yes. osCommerce
3.x is using the 3-clause BSD license which is fully compatible with the GNU
General Public License
Q. What versions of osCommerce
does the BSD License apply to?
A. The BSD License is for
osCommerce 3.x
Q. Will osCommerce 2.x still
be released under the GNU General Public License?
A. Yes, the
license for osCommerce 2.x has not changed
Q. What licence are addons for
osCommerce 3.x released under?
A. Developers now have the
choice to release their Add-Ons under a BSD compatible license or to continue
using the GNU General Public License.
Q. Why change the license?
A. The GNU General Public
License has served us well for 11 years however we want to create even more
business possibilities and opportunities for store owners, developers, and our
community. Changing the licence helps make that possible.
Q. Where can I find out more
information about the different licenses?
A. There is an interesting
article / video from Redhat which is worth watchinghttp://www.redhat.com/magazine/006apr05/features/licenses/.
You can also check out Wikipedia
Q. Can I use osCommerce 3.x
addons released under the GNU General Public License in a binary
only/commercial closed source project?
A. No. The
change to using the BSD licence for the core of osCommerce doesn't remove the
viral part of the GNU General Public License. If you use GNU General Public
Licensed code in your project the source code must be
provided to comply with the licence. If you want to release a project as binary
only then you will not be able to use any addons that are licenced under the
GNU General Public License
Q. Can developers release
osCommerce 3.x under the GNU General Public License?
A. No. Only osCommerce has the
right to change the licensing of the core framework
Q. Can developers include BSD
licensed community addons in projects released under the GNU General Public
License?
A. Yes. However including BSD
code in a GNU General Public License project doesn't change the licence of the
code. It is still released under the BSD license.
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