軟件開發中常見的開源協議

在項目開發中我們有時候可能需要用到一些開源的軟件，因此需要對常見的開源協議有所了解，避免出現一些法律問題。 本文介紹常見的開源協議如BSD, GPL, LGPL,Apache,MIT等，說明在使用這些開源協議軟件時需要注意的事項。

BSD

BSD開源協議是一個給於使用者很大自由的協議。基本上使用者可以“為所欲為”,可以自由的使用，修改源代碼，也可以將修改后的代碼作為開源或者專有軟件再發布。

但“為所欲為”的前提當你發布使用了BSD協議的代碼，或則以BSD協議代碼為基礎做二次開發自己的產品時，需要滿足三個條件：

1、如果再發布的產品中包含源代碼，則在源代碼中必須帶有原來代碼中的BSD協議。

2、如果再發布的只是二進制類庫/軟件，則需要在類庫/軟件的文檔和版權聲明中包含原來代碼中的BSD協議。

3、不可以用開源代碼的作者/機構名字和原來產品的名字做市場推廣。

BSD 代碼鼓勵代碼共享，但需要尊重代碼作者的著作權。BSD由於允許使用者修改和重新發布代碼，也允許使用或在BSD代碼上開發商業軟件發布和銷售，因此是對商業集成很友好的協議。而很多的公司企業在選用開源產品的時候都首選BSD協議，因為可以完全控制這些第三方的代碼，在必要的時候可以修改或者二次開發。

Copyright (c) <year>, <copyright holder>
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
    * Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
      notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
    * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
      notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
      documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
    * Neither the name of the <organization> nor the
      names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
      derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL <COPYRIGHT HOLDER> BE LIABLE FOR ANY
DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
(INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND
ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS
SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

 

Apache Licence 2.0

Apache Licence是著名的非盈利開源組織Apache采用的協議。該協議和BSD類似，同樣鼓勵代碼共享和尊重原作者的著作權，同樣允許代碼修改，再發布（作為開源或商業軟件）。需要滿足的條件也和BSD類似：

1、需要給代碼的用戶一份Apache Licence；

2、如果你修改了代碼，需要再被修改的文件中說明；

3、在延伸的代碼中（修改和有源代碼衍生的代碼中）需要帶有原來代碼中的協議，商標，專利聲明和其他原來作者規定需要包含的說明。

4、如果再發布的產品中包含一個Notice文件，則在Notice文件中需要帶有Apache Licence。你可以在Notice中增加自己的許可，但不可以表現為對Apache Licence構成更改。

Apache Licence也是對商業應用友好的許可。使用者也可以在需要的時候修改代碼來滿足需要並作為開源或商業產品發布/銷售。

 Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]

 Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 limitations under the License.

 

GPL

我們很熟悉的Linux就是采用了GPL。GPL協議和BSD, Apache Licence等鼓勵代碼重用的許可很不一樣。GPL的出發點是代碼的開源/免費使用和引用/修改/衍生代碼的開源/免費使用，但不允許修改后和衍生的代碼做為閉源的商業軟件發布和銷售。這也就是為什么我們能用免費的各種linux，包括商業公司的linux和linux上各種各樣的由個人，組織，以及商業軟件公司開發的免費軟件了。

GPL協議的主要內容是只要在一個軟件中使用(“使用”指類庫引用，修改后的代碼或者衍生代碼)GPL 協議的產品，則該軟件產品必須也采用GPL協議，即必須也是開放源代碼的。這就是所謂的”傳染性”。GPL協議的產品作為一個單獨的產品使用沒有任何問題，還可以享受免費的優勢。

由於GPL嚴格要求使用了GPL類庫的軟件產品必須使用GPL協議，對於使用GPL協議的開源代碼，商業軟件或者對代碼有保密要求的部門就不適合集成/采用作為類庫和二次開發的基礎。

其它細節如再發布的時候需要伴隨GPL協議等和BSD/Apache等類似。

 <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>
    Copyright (C) <year>  <name of author>

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

 

LGPL

LGPL是GPL的一個為主要為類庫使用設計的開源協議。和GPL要求任何使用/修改/衍生之GPL類庫的的軟件必須采用GPL協議不同。LGPL允許商業軟件通過類庫引用(link)方式使用LGPL類庫而不需要開源商業軟件的代碼。這使得采用LGPL協議的開源代碼可以被商業軟件作為類庫引用並發布和銷售。 但是如果修改LGPL協議的代碼或者衍生，則所有修改的代碼，涉及修改部分的額外代碼和衍生的代碼都必須采用LGPL協議。因此LGPL協議的開源代碼很適合作為第三方類庫被商業軟件引用，但不適合希望以LGPL協議代碼為基礎，通過修改和衍生的方式做二次開發的商業軟件采用。

GPL/LGPL都保障原作者的知識產權，避免有人利用開源代碼復制並開發類似的產品。

Copyright (c) <year>, <copyright holders>

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA

MIT

MIT是和BSD一樣寬范的許可協議,作者只想保留版權,而無任何其他了限制.也就是說,你必須在你的發行版里包含原許可協議的聲明,無論你是以二進制發布的還是以源代碼發布的。

Copyright (c) <year>, <copyright holders>

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

總結

如果你在開發軟件中用到了GPL許可證的軟件，那么你自己的軟件也必須GPL開源了，這對於商業軟件是很難接受的，因此我們在軟件開發中要避免使用GPL開源的軟件。

LGPL，Apache License，BSD，MIT這些協議就寬松很多，只需要在使用時對原作者的工作進行必要的認可和尊重即可，所以這些是適合商業應用的。