Policies/Licensing Policy
< Policies
All source code in KDE SVN must meet the following requirements:
- All source files must contain a copyright header which identifies the copyright holder(s) together with a e-mail address that can be used to reach the copyright holder.
- Each source file must contain a license or a reference to a license which states under which terms the software may be used, modified and redistributed.
- Source files that are part of a library in kdelibs must be licensed under the terms of any of the following licenses:
- LGPL as listed in kdelibs/COPYING.LIB
- BSD license as listed in kdelibs/COPYING.BSD and below.
Note that the BSD license does not contain the so called 'advertisement clause'. - X11 license as listed below.
- Any other source files must be licensed under the terms of one of the licenses listed under 3) or any of the following licenses:
- GPL as listed in kdelibs/COPYING
- QPL as listed below.
- MIT license as listed below.
- Artistic license as listed below.
BSD License
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
X11 License
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE X CONSORTIUM BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. Except as contained in this notice, the name of the X Consortium shall not be used in advertising or otherwise to promote the sale, use or other dealings in this Software without prior written authorization from the X Consortium.
QPL
THE Q PUBLIC LICENSE version 1.0 Copyright (C) 1999-2000 Trolltech AS, Norway. Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute this license document. The intent of this license is to establish freedom to share and change the software regulated by this license under the open source model. This license applies to any software containing a notice placed by the copyright holder saying that it may be distributed under the terms of the Q Public License version 1.0. Such software is herein referred to as the Software. This license covers modification and distribution of the Software, use of third-party application programs based on the Software, and development of free software which uses the Software. Granted Rights 1. You are granted the non-exclusive rights set forth in this license provided you agree to and comply with any and all conditions in this license. Whole or partial distribution of the Software, or software items that link with the Software, in any form signifies acceptance of this license. 2. You may copy and distribute the Software in unmodified form provided that the entire package, including - but not restricted to - copyright, trademark notices and disclaimers, as released by the initial developer of the Software, is distributed. 3. You may make modifications to the Software and distribute your modifications, in a form that is separate from the Software, such as patches. The following restrictions apply to modifications: a. Modifications must not alter or remove any copyright notices in the Software. b. When modifications to the Software are released under this license, a non-exclusive royalty-free right is granted to the initial developer of the Software to distribute your modification in future versions of the Software provided such versions remain available under these terms in addition to any other license(s) of the initial developer. 4. You may distribute machine-executable forms of the Software or machine-executable forms of modified versions of the Software, provided that you meet these restrictions: a. You must include this license document in the distribution. b. You must ensure that all recipients of the machine-executable forms are also able to receive the complete machine-readable source code to the distributed Software, including all modifications, without any charge beyond the costs of data transfer, and place prominent notices in the distribution explaining this. c. You must ensure that all modifications included in the machine-executable forms are available under the terms of this license. 5. You may use the original or modified versions of the Software to compile, link and run application programs legally developed by you or by others. 6. You may develop application programs, reusable components and other software items that link with the original or modified versions of the Software. These items, when distributed, are subject to the following requirements: a. You must ensure that all recipients of machine-executable forms of these items are also able to receive and use the complete machine-readable source code to the items without any charge beyond the costs of data transfer. b. You must explicitly license all recipients of your items to use and re-distribute original and modified versions of the items in both machine-executable and source code forms. The recipients must be able to do so without any charges whatsoever, and they must be able to re-distribute to anyone they choose. c. If the items are not available to the general public, and the initial developer of the Software requests a copy of the items, then you must supply one. Limitations of Liability In no event shall the initial developers or copyright holders be liable for any damages whatsoever, including - but not restricted to - lost revenue or profits or other direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential damages, even if they have been advised of the possibility of such damages, except to the extent invariable law, if any, provides otherwise. No Warranty The Software and this license document are provided AS IS with NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING THE WARRANTY OF DESIGN, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Choice of Law This license is governed by the Laws of Norway. Disputes shall be settled by Oslo City Court.
MIT license
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that the copyright notice and this permission notice and warranty disclaimer appear in supporting documentation, and that the name of the author not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission. The author disclaim all warranties with regard to this software, including all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall the author be liable for any special, indirect or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tortious action, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of this software.
Artistic License
The "Artistic License" Preamble The intent of this document is to state the conditions under which a Package may be copied, such that the Copyright Holder maintains some semblance of artistic control over the development of the package, while giving the users of the package the right to use and distribute the Package in a more-or-less customary fashion, plus the right to make reasonable modifications. Definitions: * "Package" refers to the collection of files distributed by the Copyright Holder, and derivatives of that collection of files created through textual modification. * "Standard Version" refers to such a Package if it has not been modified, or has been modified in accordance with the wishes of the Copyright Holder. * "Copyright Holder" is whoever is named in the copyright or copyrights for the package. * "You" is you, if you're thinking about copying or distributing this Package. * "Reasonable copying fee" is whatever you can justify on the basis of media cost, duplication charges, time of people involved, and so on. (You will not be required to justify it to the Copyright Holder, but only to the computing community at large as a market that must bear the fee.) * "Freely Available" means that no fee is charged for the item itself, though there may be fees involved in handling the item. It also means that recipients of the item may redistribute it under the same conditions they received it. 1. You may make and give away verbatim copies of the source form of the Standard Version of this Package without restriction, provided that you duplicate all of the original copyright notices and associated disclaimers. 2. You may apply bug fixes, portability fixes and other modifications derived from the Public Domain or from the Copyright Holder. A Package modified in such a way shall still be considered the Standard Version. 3. You may otherwise modify your copy of this Package in any way, provided that you insert a prominent notice in each changed file stating how and when you changed that file, and provided that you do at least ONE of the following: a) place your modifications in the Public Domain or otherwise make them Freely Available, such as by posting said modifications to Usenet or an equivalent medium, or placing the modifications on a major archive site such as ftp.uu.net, or by allowing the Copyright Holder to include your modifications in the Standard Version of the Package. b) use the modified Package only within your corporation or organization. c) rename any non-standard executables so the names do not conflict with standard executables, which must also be provided, and provide a separate manual page for each non-standard executable that clearly documents how it differs from the Standard Version. d) make other distribution arrangements with the Copyright Holder. 4. You may distribute the programs of this Package in object code or executable form, provided that you do at least ONE of the following: a) distribute a Standard Version of the executables and library files, together with instructions (in the manual page or equivalent) on where to get the Standard Version. b) accompany the distribution with the machine-readable source of the Package with your modifications. c) accompany any non-standard executables with their corresponding Standard Version executables, giving the non-standard executables non-standard names, and clearly documenting the differences in manual pages (or equivalent), together with instructions on where to get the Standard Version. d) make other distribution arrangements with the Copyright Holder. 5. You may charge a reasonable copying fee for any distribution of this Package. You may charge any fee you choose for support of this Package. You may not charge a fee for this Package itself. However, you may distribute this Package in aggregate with other (possibly commercial) programs as part of a larger (possibly commercial) software distribution provided that you do not advertise this Package as a product of your own. 6. The scripts and library files supplied as input to or produced as output from the programs of this Package do not automatically fall under the copyright of this Package, but belong to whomever generated them, and may be sold commercially, and may be aggregated with this Package. 7. C or perl subroutines supplied by you and linked into this Package shall not be considered part of this Package. 8. The name of the Copyright Holder may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. 9. THIS PACKAGE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. The End