PERMISSIVE OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE LICENSES

 

The main feature of permissive open-source software (OSS) licenses is that they allow the usage of software in proprietary and/or closed source projects. More precisely, such software can be re-licensed: it can become a part of the completely new project of arbitrary license or even rebranded with certain useful changes. The only requirement is a clause of the use: the distributed work must be attributed to the author.

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A drawback of the permissive OSS is that the original author is not liable for defects and there is no transparent way to receive support and updates in case of the derived closed-source software. 

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The main examples of the permissive OSS licenses are MIT​, Apache, and BSD.

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Due to the license compatibility issue, special care must be taken in case of a combination of GPL software components or libraries with the ones licensed under the permissive license. It is related to an "opposite" nature of copyleft (aka protective) and permissive licenses.