From: Dido Sevilla Date: 2005-11-08T16:25:47+09:00 Subject: Re: which open source licence? On 11/8/05, petermichaux@yahoo.com wrote: > I think I've seen an open source licence that requires any > modifications/improvements to be reported back to the original project. > Anyone here know if that licence really exists? > An open-source/Free Software license cannot enforce this, as they operate solely on the bounds of copyright law. Copyright licenses can only govern what you must do when you make copies of something. Modifying or improving software is not copying it. In order to do what you describe and make it legally enforceable, you would need a legally binding *contract* that every person who receives your software must agree to. > Is there a good, brief summary comparison of the main open source > licenses? I've looked around and the comparisons are either simpleton > or just lists of way to many licenses. The Free Software Foundation has a list of many licenses and gives their qualifications as to whether or not they are Free Software licenses, how well they work with that most ubiquitous of Free Software Licenses, the GPL, as well as some licenses that you may think are Free but actually have some restrictions that make them not Free: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html The comparison is mainly to the GPL.