Viral license
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A Viral License, is a term used by Bernard Golden to describe a license that applies identically to all derivative works.[1] Viral Licenses tend to maintain a degree of control over intellectual property by restricting the terms of the license strictly and sub-licensing openly, in contrast to copyright licenses where sub-licensing is usually tightly restricted[vague].
Since the term "viral" has mostly negative associations, "reciprocal" has been suggested as a better term (used for example in the Reciprocal Public License).
In context of legally binding contracts and licenses, "viral" refers to anything[clarification needed][citation needed], especially anything memetic[clarification needed][citation needed], that propagates itself by attaching itself to something else. Many Viral Licenses are designed with an aim to promote free content.[2]
Wikipedia itself operates off the GNU Free Documentation License, a type of Viral License. This allows forking and mirroring of its content and translation of Wikipedia into other languages, all while still remaining under identical license terms to the original content.[3] Similarly, the Share-alike CC-by-sa license is in common usage among other wiki-based projects.
Although many notable Viral Licenses promote free content, there are also licenses that don't. For instance, the Creative Commons CC-nc-sa license restricts commercial usage of further modifications. Purely commercial licenses can also incorporate viral characteristics[clarification needed], even if they do not lead to strict viral duplication[clarification needed] of the original license.
Copyleft licenses overlap with Viral Licenses because they have many viral characteristics[clarification needed], but are not necessarily strictly Viral Licenses themselves. For instance, software licensed under the LGPL can interoperate with software that is not under a Copyleft license, without automatically "infecting"[clarification needed][weasel words] that software with Copyleft.
[edit] References
- ^ Golden, Bernard (2005). "3". Succeeding with Open Source. Addison-Wesley. pp. 44. ISBN 9780321268532. http://books.google.com/books?id=S4d9SzBjGIgC&pg=PA44&.
- ^ Meeker, Heather J. (2008). "2". The Open Source Alternative. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 11. ISBN 9780470194959. http://books.google.com/books?id=J3rwa7t336sC&pg=PA11.
- ^ de Joode, R. van Wendel; J. A. de Bruijn, Michel van Eeten (2003). "6". Protecting the Virtual Commons. Cambridge University Press. pp. 112. ISBN 9789067041591. http://books.google.com/books?id=rPQG3j-ofJ8C&pg=PA112.
- MS lawyers join open source fray, CNET, Stephen Shankland, 25 Jun 2001
