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SoftwareLicensing » History » Version 6

laforge, 03/06/2016 05:36 AM

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h1. Software Licensing
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In general, each of the Osmocom projects contains a @COPYING@ file in the soure code, containing the detailed software license of the respective project.  Please make sure to understand the license terms before using the software!
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h2. AGPLv3+: Most Osmocom Cellular infrastructure software, such as [[OpenBSC:]]
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The following notes apply to software described on this wiki, developed as part of the Osmocom project. Specifically, it applies to [[OpenBSC:]], [[OsmoNITB:]], [[OsmoSGSN:]], [[OsmoBTS:]], gb_proxy, ipaccess-config, bsc_nat, osmo-bsc_mgcp, ...
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For reasons of simplicity, we always call it _OpenBSC_ here.
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*OpenBSC is copyrighted software like any other computer program.  In order to use [[OpenBSC:]], you need a license from the copyright holders.*
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If you do not arrange for a different license with the copyright holders, the software ships with a default license: The "AGPLv3":http://fsf.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html (GNU Affero General Public License, Version 3).
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h3. General idea behind the AGPLv3 Licensing
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The general idea behind our licensing model is as follows:  You receive the full source code of the [[OpenBSC:]] software and can use it like you see fit, *but* we require you to release the source code of any modifications or derivative work you create.
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With AGPL, it does not matter whether you ever distribute the [[OpenBSC:]] software.  As soon as you provide a GSM network using [[OpenBSC:]], all users are entitled to receive a copy of the license text and the _complete corresponding source code_ of the very version you are using to run the GSM network with.
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h2. GPLv2+: libosmocore, [[OsmoPCU:]]
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[[libosmocore:]] (and its siblings @libosmogsm@, @libosmovty@, @libosmoctrl@, etc.) as well as [[OsmoPCU:]] are licensed under "GNU GPL Version 2, or any later version".  This means at the time of this writing, you can license them under either "GPLv2":http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html or "GPLv3":http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html.
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As both GPLv2 and GPLv3 are _strong copyleft_ licenses, it means that creating a derivative work of the library and an executable program will require that executable program to be under the same GPL version.
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If you use the libraries together with the Osmocom executable programs (see above), then libosmocore will be licensed under GPLv3, which is compatible with the AGPLv3 of the executable programs.
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h2. Questions
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If you have any questions regarding the licenses used in the Osmocom project, please contact the project authors *before* you create any kind of product or a derivative work.
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