|
About the Author
|
| Vishal Row is a Software Architect with over 7 Years of Industry experience. He has contributed to various open source projects. He is specialized in Knowledge management domain. He has also worked on improvement of SCDL processes using Extreme programming and Open Source Software. He can be reached at babavi23 (at) yahoo (dot) com |
More articles by Vishal Row 
|
|
|
|
You found a good software, You want to use it for your project, but you are confused!! Whether you can use this software or not, whether you can modify this software or not, whether you can bundle this software with you project or not.
This article tries to provide some "information" regarding above questions, as mentioned in disclaimer , intention of this article is just to provide information and hence it should not be used to make any decision on usage of software.
Types of software
- Proprietary Software
- Free ware/shareware
- Copy lefted Free Software
- Non Copy lefted Free software
- Open source software
Proprietary Software
Proprietary software is software that is not free or semi-free. Its use, redistribution or modification is prohibited, or requires you to ask for permission, or is restricted so much that you effectively can't do it freely.
For example : Word , PowerPoint etc
License : Depends on company
Usage : Should be used only if bought legally
Freeware/shareware
Freeware packages which permit redistribution but not modification (and their source code is
not available). These packages are not free software.
Shareware does not come with permission to make a copy and install it without paying a license fee, not even for individuals engaging in nonprofit activity
License : Depends on company
Usage : Should be used after carefully going through license . And not after the term is over.
Copy lefted Free Software
Copylefted software is free software whose distribution terms do not let redistributors add any additional restrictions when they redistribute or modify the software. This means that every copy of the software, even if it has been modified, must be free software.
Two different copyleft licenses are usually incompatible, which means it is illegal to merge the code using one license with the code using the other license; therefore, it is good for the community if people use a single copyleft license.
License : Mostly GPL/ MPL etc
Usage : Cannot and should not be used in those projects for which company is going to charge.
Non Copy lefted Free software
Non-copylefted free software comes from the author with permission to redistribute and modify, and also to add additional restrictions to it. If a program is free but not copylefted, then some copies or modified versions may not be free at all. A software company can compile the program, with or without modifications, and distribute the executable file as a proprietary software product. Only after studying the license carefully it can be determined whether the software is non copy lefted or not.
Licence : Apache, BSD, Artistic
Usage : Can be (should be)used in the company projects.
Open source software
OSS is software for which the source code is freely and publicly available, though the specific licensing agreements vary as to what one is allowed to do with that code.
License : LGPL , Apache , Artistic, BSD
Usage : Can be ( should be ) used
Advantages of using OSS
- Reuse of code Saves Time.
- Software is already tested by thousands of users across the globe. Hence it can be trusted.
- Saves Energy.
Disclaimer : Intention of writing this article is to just provide information about the various types of softwares and their licenses. Before using any software it is a good practice to go through its license carefully. We do not take any responsibility what so ever, other than informing users about types of software. We strongly suggest users to go through Licenses carefully before using any software
|
|
Print
E-Mail