Open Source Licensing 101
Open Source Licensing 101
From Concepts to Practical Implications
About the Book
As an open source user and software engineering researcher, I always have been amazed by open source licenses, in particular, because quickly things can go wrong.
Why is it important to study open source licenses in 2021? Some questions to think:
- Do you know why Google banned the use of the AGPL license on any of its open source projects?
- Do you know why GPL 2.0 license, one of the purest copyleft licenses, has more than halved in usage in the last 10 years?
- Do you know why it took about a year to change a license in the Eclipse project?
- Do you know that the core team of the Lerna project removed of its maintainers due to license misuses?
- Do you know why you should run away from open source projects that don't have any license?
Software licensing is a complex subject, which often requires expertise from other areas far away from the software development arena. Indeed, most books regarding software licensing are also written by lawyers, which is not a problem itself, but the terms employed may hinder the understanding of the software development community (I had a hard time understanding some concepts on these books). Another problem is that developers may not always see any concrete implication of an eventual license misuse.
The goal of this book
The goal of this book is two-fold:
- First, we intend to make this complex license stuff simpler.
- Second, the book should highlight concrete examples of license problems (so developers could easily relate to their activities).
By doing this, we expect that developers could better understand the importance of open source licenses and the context in which they could use (or not) one given software library (because of license concerns).
About the Author
Table of Contents
The Leanpub 60 Day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
Now, this is technically risky for us, since you'll have the book or course files either way. But we're so confident in our products and services, and in our authors and readers, that we're happy to offer a full money back guarantee for everything we sell.
You can only find out how good something is by trying it, and because of our 100% money back guarantee there's literally no risk to do so!
So, there's no reason not to click the Add to Cart button, is there?
See full terms...
Earn $8 on a $10 Purchase, and $16 on a $20 Purchase
We pay 80% royalties on purchases of $7.99 or more, and 80% royalties minus a 50 cent flat fee on purchases between $0.99 and $7.98. You earn $8 on a $10 sale, and $16 on a $20 sale. So, if we sell 5000 non-refunded copies of your book for $20, you'll earn $80,000.
(Yes, some authors have already earned much more than that on Leanpub.)
In fact, authors have earnedover $14 millionwriting, publishing and selling on Leanpub.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers) and EPUB (for phones, tablets and Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
