page_title: Free-software license
hierarchical_section_title: Free-software license
caption_attribution_description: English: Free software licenses in a spectrum.
context_page_description: A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software. These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder of a piece of software can remove these restrictions by accompanying the software with a software license which grants the recipient these rights. Software using such a license is free software as conferred by the copyright holder. Free-software licenses are applied to software in source code and also binary object-code form, as the copyright law recognizes both forms.
context_section_description: A free-software license is a notice that grants the recipient of a piece of software extensive rights to modify and redistribute that software.  These actions are usually prohibited by copyright law, but the rights-holder (usually the author) of a piece of software can remove these restrictions by accompanying the software with a software license which grants the recipient these rights.  Software using such a license is free software (or free and open-source software) as conferred by the copyright holder. Free-software licenses are applied to software in source code and also binary object-code form, as the copyright law recognizes both forms.
caption: The free-software-licensing spectrum and some examples of programs under those licenses according to David A. Wheeler (2007)[1]
exif: {}