Do You Know What Kind of Open Source License Your Library Project Has?

Libraries, schools, and other non-profits are not a big market for the vendors of proprietary software, who generally are more interested in large corporations. Most non-profits have to cobble together consortia and grants to buy this kind of software. The approach is plagued with problems. Everyone feels like they are giving up something of local importance, and the grant money is long gone by the time software updates are needed. Another more recent approach is open source — projects where the license allows all users to inspect and modify the code as they like. Private vendors may be willing to contribute expertise and labour in return for your contributions and for potential income spinoffs. Sounds good, eh? But do you know what kind of open source license your project has? Has a particular license been chosen at all? It matters. A well known example of open source in libraries is the Evergreen ILS . Evergreen is licensed under GNU General Public License . This license...