Open Licensing—Advanced Sharing - Open-Source Lab: How to Build Your Own Hardware and Reduce Research Costs - page 37

are more tolerant of losing the “freedom” of the code. Table 3.1 [ 13 ] shows the major difer-
ences between the three classes of open-source software licenses. In the case of unrestrictive
licenses, the line between open and closed software licenses is very close, but distinct.
TABLE 3.1
Comparison of Open-Source License Classes
Source: Adapted from Bruns [ 13 ].
Today, the open-source definition has matured and open-source software licenses must
meet 10 fundamental requirements [ 14 ] :
1. The license must not restrict commercial or noncommercial (NC) distribution of software in
any way.
2. The license must require that the software be distributed with compiled and clear source
code.
3. The license must allow modifications and derived work to be distributed under the same
terms as the original work.
4. The license must maintain the integrity of the author's source code.
5. The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
6. The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of
endeavor.
7. The license must apply to everyone receiving the redistributed program without the need
for an additional license.
8. The license must not be specific to a product.
9. The license must not restrict software distributed under other licenses but in the same pack-
age.
10. The license must be technology neutral.
For details of each, see the Open Source Definition.8 . 8 All these requirements must be met for
a license to be considered a true open-source license, not just some of them. A list of open-
source software licenses is maintained by the Open Source Initiative. 9 However, open-source
licenses are not limited to software. The concept of the open-source license has spread to other
areas like documentation, 10 art, 11 and academic journals. 12 These licenses have the same major
characteristics as open-source software licenses: the availability of the “source code” and the
right to free redistribution.
3.3 OSHW Licenses
Some of these licenses could obviously be easily adapted to hardware.