The Including Public Licence (or IPL) is an attempt at a new kind of open-source software licence. It combines availability of source code with a free licence for non-commercial use. An obligation to make a payment is imposed on commercial users. In this way, programmers can share and contribute to a growing body of code that is useable by everyone for both commercial and non-commercial purposes. Only in this way can we all bootstrap off the efforts of others and give software authors the twin joys of freely giving others the benefit of their work whilst not being taken advantage of by commercial interests.
I believe we should try to benefit everyone of good will. This licence is an attempt to let us do that. Programmers are benefiting everyone by releasing software under a licence that permits everyone to use their work. Non-commercial users and distributors are benefiting programmers by retaining author information so programmers get credit for their work.
The version of the licence available at present is EXPERIMENTAL. Please read the comments at the head of the licence before using.
Position paper: Uniting the Open-Source and Commercial Software Worlds
The purpose and vision of the IPL software licence
Explanation of the terms of the IPL licence
Previous versions and reasons for changes
Philosophical questions and answers
| Ron House house@usq.edu.au Created: 26/5/98 Modified: 26/5/98 |
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