THE SELECTION OF A PROPER SOFTWARE LICENSE

 

The selection of a proper software license is a critical step of the original product design stage. This impacts all further evolution of the product and its compatibility with other licenses should the merge or integration need arise. The main options to select from are:

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1. Open-source software (OSS) licenses are:

   • Permissive license​s

   • Copyleft licenses

2. Proprietary software licenses

3. Multi/Dual-licensing approaches

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There is also a limitation of the license selection possibility at the beginning depending on the necessary OSS licenses of the third-party components. Moreover, the changes in the OSS license version over the course of time require similar alignment for your software. In rare cases, it's even possible that the license compatibility will diverge at some point of the version changes.

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Another crucial aspect is a work with the OSS community in case of the corresponding license selection. This includes a reaction to pull requests, issues reporting, merging in both directions, etc.

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SafeOSS team will be happy to help design a licensing strategy for your business, taking into account all the commercial and technological implications.