Software Licenses

   A software license is a legal instrument governing the use or redistribution of software. It is a contract between the owner of the software and the user of it. A software are all the programs and other operating information used by a computer. There are many kind of softwares licenses, which can be classified in two ways according to the terms of distribution. Almost all of them include a software copyright, either for preventing unauthorized copy of the software, or to enforce their terms.

Free Open-source Software Licenses

   This software licenses allow modifying and editing the software. There are 2 categories:

• Permissive licenses: They try to keep to the minimum the restrictions about the redistribution of the software. Some examples are the MIT license and the BSD license.
• Copyleft licenses: They aim to preserve maximum freedom. They give unlimited permission to use, study, modify and redistribute the software or any modifications of it, as long as any subsequent users also have this rights.

Proprietary Software Licenses

   In this kind of software licenses, the publisher grants the use of the software under an end-user license agreement, but he keeps the ownership of it. This way, some rights are kept to the publisher. They often include terms of use, which define important things about the use of the software, such as the numer of installations allowed and the terms of distribution. Therefore, if the end-user doesn't accept the license, he can't use the software. This kind of software usually includes maintenance in the agreement. 

   The proprietary software licenses are almost always closed softwares. This means that is restricted to edit, modify, test and do other activities which are included in the license. A well-known example of this kind of proprietary software licenses is Microsoft Windows.

To get more information about the different type of licenses, click here. For specific information about free software licenses, click here. If you wish to know more information about open-source software licenses, click here. For extra information on proprietary software licenses, click here.

Sources

• Wikipedia