An overview of common free software licences

Not-for-profit organisations often utilise free or Open Source software with out any knowledge of the many associated software licenses.  There are numerous free licenses available with a myriad of different clauses. Essentially all of the licences enable free use and sometimes modification of the software, but there are some subtle differences.

Below are summaries of the main “Free software” licenses.

GPL – General Public License
Enables a user to copy and distribute the software and to make modifications to the program and distribute that also. If your organisation modifies the program you are obliged to keep the modified program as GPL and make the source code available.

Copy Left
A general method for making a program or other work free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to also be free.

Creative Commons License
This is a license that enables authors; scientist’s artists etc distribute their work with the freedom or constraints that the author desires. If your organisation is utilising software with such a license you should read it carefully.
There current developments being undertaken for an Aotearoa/New Zealand Creative Commons license at http://www.creativecommons.org.nz

Public Domain
Although this is often referred to as a license it is not a license; rather, it means the material is not copyrighted and no license is needed.

A myriad of software can be downloaded for free utilising the above licenses from http://sourceforge.net

If your organisation has had Open Source software specifically created for your organisation, you may be asked if you would like it to be released under a specific licence. In this case you should consult closely with the developer.