OStatic

For most people, the most important part of a software license is the end. That's because they're totally uninterested in the license itself; they are merely interested in scrolling past it, so that they can click on OK and install the software that they are running. For users of open-source software, however, licenses should be extremely important, because they determine what you may and may not do with a particular program. Open-source developers have long debated the merits of the GNU General Public License vs. the BSD License. As open-source software becomes mainstream, and is integrated into larger systems, these age-old arguments are less theoretical than ever, and should be understood not only by developers, but also by managers and executives of organizations working with open source. Van Lindberg's new book is an excellent place to start.

We've previously covered some of the (minor) controversy surrounding the choice of licenses for projects hosted at the Google Code site. In a nutshell, the Google open source folks are concerned about the proliferation of free and open source licenses, and one way in which they choose to make a stand is by limiting the licenses that projects on their site can use. As they point out, there are plenty of other hosting sites you can use - but being Google, their opinion does have some weight.