Open Source Initiative approves four new open source licenses

As the manager of the "Open Source Definition", the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has designated the license as "Open Source" for more than 20 years. These licenses are the foundation of the open source software ecosystem, ensuring that everyone can use, improve, and share software. When a license is approved, it is because OSI believes that the license promotes cooperation and sharing, benefiting everyone participating in the ecosystem.

In the past 20 years, the world has undergone earth-shaking changes, and software is now being used in new and even unimaginable ways. OSI has seen that the previously familiar open source licenses are not always suitable for these new situations. Therefore, OSI stepped forward as a license administrator and submitted several new licenses for a wider range of uses. The challenge for OSI is to evaluate whether these new license concepts will continue to promote sharing and collaboration, and whether they are worthy of being called "open source" licenses. In the end, OSI approved some new licenses for special areas.

Four new licenses

The first is Cryptographic Autonomy License (CAL). This license is designed for distributed cryptography applications. The existing open source license cannot guarantee openness, because if there is no obligation to share data with other peers, then one peer may damage the operation of the network. Therefore, in addition to being a powerful copyright license, CAL also includes providing third parties with the rights and materials needed to independently use and modify the software, without causing the third party to lose data or functions.

With the increasing use of distributed cryptography in the peer-to-peer sharing of encrypted structures, it should not be surprising if more developers find themselves in need of a legal tool like CAL. We hope that the resulting license is clear and easy to understand, and hope that open source practitioners will find it useful.

As mentioned in our previous report, the CERN Open Hardware Licence (OHL) series license submitted by CERN has been reviewed and approved. The OHL series contains three licenses. The three licenses are mainly for open hardware. This is an open access field similar to open source software. The boundary between hardware and software has been quite blurred, so only used in the project Separate hardware or software licenses have become increasingly difficult. CERN set out to produce a license that would ensure the freedom of hardware and software.

In the past, OSI may not consider adding open source hardware licenses to its open source license list, but now the open source field has changed. Therefore, although the wording in CERN's license contains many hardware concepts, it also meets all the review qualifications for open source software licenses. Moreover, the OHL license has recently been adopted by an international research project that is building a simple, easy-to-replicate ventilator for COVID-19 patients.

CAL and CERN's OHL licenses are mainly used in special fields, and OSI does not recommend using these licenses outside of their specific fields. However, OSI is also eager to know whether these licenses will work as they wish, and cultivate a strong open ecosystem in these newer computing fields.

Guess you like

Origin www.oschina.net/news/131444/osi-licenses-cal-cern-ohl