a glob of nerdishness

Jeff Atwood has put together a handy chart of software licenses on his great blog. It lists only a few of all the software licenses known to man, but that’s just the point. What makes the chart especially handy is his choice of columns. Succinct “Source” and “License” headings help narrow a choice down, and the “Clauses” column suggests the amount of legalese you’re in for upon further investigation. It’s almost as helpful as the Creative Commons license builder(1), but for software developers.

For helping programmers to share their own code, the three Microsoft licenses (especially the two which have Open Source Initiative-approved cousins) seem out of place. All the same, I present for completeness a similar summary of the Apple Public Source License, version 2:

• Source: Open
• License: Permissive / Weak copyleft
• Clauses: 13 with abundant sub-clauses
• Gist: allows proprietary use of unmodified code, with patent and source code caveats on modifications.

Obviously not a great choice for new code(2). It’s a license Apple uses to voluntarily release the kernel code for OS X, and even they don’t use it for all their available sources.

1. …though if I ever come across (or make) a page that puts the extra CC polish on the process, I’ll let you know.
2. The wildebeest himself approves your use and contributions to APSL-licensed software, but doesn’t “recommend you…release new software using this license”.