Sybase Open Watcom Public License

The Sybase Open Watcom Public Licence is a software license that has been approved by the Open Source Initiative.[2] It is the licence under which the Open Watcom C/C++ compiler is released.

Sybase Open Watcom Public License
SPDX identifierWatcom-1.0
Debian FSG compatibleNo
FSF approvedNo[1]
OSI approvedYes[2]
GPL compatibleNo
CopyleftVery strong

The license has not been accepted as "free" under the Debian Free Software Guidelines, due to the license's termination clauses.[3][4]

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has stated that the license is not "free" as it requires the source to be published when you "deploy" the software for private use only.[1] In contrast, FSF's General Public License (GPL) does not require that modified source code has to be made public when the software modification was only used privately without a public release of the software. This makes the Watcom license also GPL incompatible and a stronger copyleft license than the GPL and even the AGPL.

The Fedora project also considers the license as non-free, citing the FSF argumentation.[5]

History

Version 1.0 appears to have been written in 2002. It's publicly released no later than January 8, 2003, the date of the initial release of Open Watcom C/C++.

The draft of version 2.0 of the License was published on 20 January 2004. This version incorporated changes from Apple and made the licence less specific to OpenWatcom.[6][7]

References

  1. "Various Licenses and Comments about Them - Sybase Open Watcom Public License version 1.0 (#Watcom)". gnu.org. Retrieved 2015-12-23. This is not a free software license. It requires you to publish the source code publicly whenever you "Deploy" the covered software, and "Deploy" is defined to include many kinds of private use.
  2. "Sybase Open Watcom Public License version 1.0". Approved Licences. Open Source Initiative. 31 October 2006.
  3. Debian Bug report #376431 RFP: openwatcom.
  4. Is the Sybase Open Watcom License ok?, thread on debian-legal mailing list (July 2006).
  5. Fedora Wiki: Licensing
  6. Markus Neifer (2004-01-20). "MN Watcom News Page".
  7. ftp://ftp.openwatcom.org/pub/devel/license-2.pdf

Further reading

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