Table of Contents

Purpose
Definitions
Criteria

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to concisely define criteria to evaluate the open source licenses for the SmartColumbusOS open source platform. This will aid in the selection of the open source license(s) and convey to the entire project team the rationale behind the selection. It is a working document and as such criteria is expected to be added, modified and deleted as necessary as the project continues. This document originated as a subtask of Issue #3 - Licensing considerations / recommendations for the Smart Columbus OS.

Definitions

Copyleft license

"Copyleft" refers to licenses that allow derivative works but require them to use the same license as the original work.

Permissive license

A "permissive" license is simply a non-copyleft open source license — one that guarantees the freedoms to use, modify, and redistribute, but that permits proprietary derivative works.

Contributor License Agreement (CLA)

The original contributor retains copyright ownership of their contributions, but grants the project a broad set of rights such that the project can incorporate and distribute the contributions as it needs to. The Apache 2.0 license embeds a CLA. Even if using Apache 2.0 it may be advantageous to create a CLA for additional terms and conditions specific to the project.

License Compatibility

License compatibility is a legal framework that allows for pieces of software with different software licenses to be distributed together. The need for such a framework arises because the different licenses can contain contradictory requirements, rendering it impossible to legally combine source code from separately-licensed software in order to create and publish a new program. See the FLOSS license slide for a compatibility graph of popular licenses.

Criteria

The initial criteria was originally seeded from the Comparison of Open source software licenses wikipedia page. Since then others have been added, e.g., license compatibility and adoption.

The TWG Preference will be based on a consensus after all members have an opportunity to voice their concerns. Until then it may be considered a default. If there is no opinion then the preference will be a question mark (?).

Criteria can apply to all the categories of software mentioned in the Licensing Models Wiki Page. The first priority will be on software repository source code, e.g., End User Applications.

Criteria	Description	TWG Preference	Notes
Linking	Linking of the licensed code with code licensed under a different license (e.g. when the code is provided as a library)	Yes	If we decide we don't want to allow the code ending up in a proprietary codebase we will reconsider (applies throughout)
Distribution	Distribution of the code to third parties, e.g., commercial, government, and NGO entities.	Yes
Modification	Modification of the code by a licensee	Yes
Patent Grant	Protection of licensees from patent claims made by code contributors regarding their contribution, and protection of contributors from patent claims made by licensees	Yes	Could be accomplished through add-on Contributor License Agreement.
Private Use	Whether modification to the code must be shared with the community or may be used privately (e.g. internal use by a corporation)	Yes	Supported by our top 4 candidate licenses.
Sub-licensing	Whether modified code may be licensed under a different license (for example a copyright) or must retain the same license under which it was provided	Yes
Trademark Grant	Use of trademarks associated with the licensed code or its contributors by a licensee	?	Could be accomplished through add-on Contributor License Agreement.
License Compatibility	The extent to which the Scos license allows combining with software of other other communities as both a consumer and a provider	More compatibility is better	See the FLOSS license slide for a compatibility graph of popular licenses.
License Adoption	The adoption of the license in open source projects	all things being equal, prefer a license with more uptake and/or favorable trend lines	see Top Open Source Licenses in 2018: Trends and Predictions