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License Categories

Category A​

Public Domain dedications​

The concept of "public domain" is a little complicated, as not every jurisdiction recognises the concept, so it's good to raise the issue to help@finos.org when it shows up. As general guidance, if the author of the library is American, the component is not a major one, and there is no public trace of issues related to the licensing of this component, there should not be problems bundling it in a FINOS (project) release.

Code licensed under the following licenses (and public domain dedications) may be included in Foundation contributions. If the license requires attribution or other notices, these should be included in the project's NOTICE file.

Common Category A Licenses​

Other Category A Licenses​

  • ACE license (DOC)
  • Adobe Postscript AFM License (APAFML)
  • Autoconf configuration file license v. 2.0 (GPL-2.0-with-autoconf-exception)
  • Autoconf configuration file license v. 3.0 (GPL-3.0-with-autoconf-exception)
  • Bouncy Castle License (MIT)
  • Boost Software License Version v. 1.0 (BSL-1.0)
  • CERN Colt package license
  • Creative Commons Copyright-Only Dedication
  • DejaVu Fonts (Bitstream Vera/Arev licenses)
  • DOM4J License
  • Plexus
  • ICU License (ICU)
  • MX4J License (apache-1.1) OOXML XSD ECMA License Open Services Oriented Architecture Collaboration documentation license
  • UK Open Government License (This license allows the licensor to provide a custom attribution notice. If one is provided, include in the NOTICE. If one is not provided, include Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. in the NOTICE.) 0 Unicode, Inc. License Agreement - Data Files and Software (Unicode-DFS-2017)
  • University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License (NCSA)
  • Zope Public License v. 2.0 (ZPL-2.0)
  • W3C Software Notice and License (W3C)
  • Do What the F*** You Want To Public License (WTFPL)
  • X.Net (Xnet)

Category B​

Third-party code licensed under the following licenses may be included in Foundation projects. However, because these licenses contain certain restrictions on downstream users (such as a reciprocal licensing requirement), a notice must be included in the project's CONTRIBUTING file if the third-party code appears directly in the project's repository. This is to ensure that contributors are aware when their modifications may be subject to restrictions other than those in the Apache License.

  • CC0-1.0 ("no material conditions at all" licenses, so they can typically be incorporated into projects under any other common open source license. But explicitly excludes a patent license, not suitable for outbound licenses) (CC0-1.0)
  • Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) v. 1.0 (CDDL-1.0)
  • CDDL v. 1.1 (CDDL-1.1)
  • Common Public License (CPL) v. 1.0 (CPL-1.0)
  • Eclipse Public License (EPL) v. 1.0 (EPL-1.0)
  • Erlang Public License v. 1.1 (ErlPL-1.1)
  • IBM Public License (IPL) v. 1.0 (IPL-1.0)
  • IPA Font License Agreement v. 1.0 (IPA)
  • Mozilla Public License (MPL) v. 1.0 (MPL-1.0)
  • MPL v. 1.1 (MPL-1.1)
  • MPL v. 2.0 (MPL-2.0)
  • Ruby License - Includes the older version when GPLv2 was a listed alternative Ruby 1.9.2 license. (Ruby)
  • SIL Open Font License v. 1.1 (OFL-1.1)
  • Sun Public License (SPL) v. 1.0 (SPL-1.0)
  • Ubuntu Font License Version v. 1.0
  • UnRAR License - Only for unarchiving

Category X​

Category X dependencies are excluded either because their licenses would not permit the Foundation project to be licensed under the Apache License, or because they contain other problematic terms. Category X licenses include any proprietary license or EULA, as well as many free and open source software licenses with reciprocal licensing requirements and other restrictions.

Dependencies that are licensed with a Category X license cannot be used in a Foundation project.

  • Academic Free License v. 3.0 (AFL-3.0)
  • Affero GPL (AGPL) v. 1 (AGPL-1.0)
  • AGPL v. 2 (AGPL-2.0)
  • AGPL v. 3 (AGPL-3.0)
  • Amazon Software License (ASL)
  • Apple Public Source License (all versions) (APSL-1.0, APSL-1.1, APSL-1.2, APSL-2.0)
  • Oracle Binary Code License (BCL)
  • Code Project Open License (CPOL) v. 1.02 (CPOL-1.02)
  • BSD 4-Clause (BSD-4-Clause)
  • Creative Commons Attribution (CC By) v. 2.5 CC-BY-2.5
  • CC By v. 3.0 (CC-BY-3.0)
  • CC By v. 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0)
  • Most Creative Commons licenses (when applied to source code)
  • European Union Public License (EUPL) v. 1.0 (EUPL-1.0)
  • European Union Public License (EUPL) v. 1.1 (EUPL-1.1)
  • GNU General Public License (GPL) v. 1 (GPL-1.0)
  • GPL v. 2 (GPL-2.0)
  • GPL v. 3 (GPL-3.0)
  • GNU Lesser GPL (LGPL) v. 2.1 (LGPL-2.1)
  • LGPL v. 3 (LGPL-3.0)
  • Honest Public License
  • JSON License (JSON)
  • Microsoft Limited Public License (Ms-LPL)
  • Netscape Public License (NPL) 1.0 (NPL-1.0)
  • NPL 1.1 (NPL-1.1)
  • Open Software License v. 3.0 (OSL-3.0)
  • Q Public License (QPL) 1.0 (QPL-1.0)
  • Sleepycat License (Sleepycat)