[IGSTK-Developers] [Insight-users] ITK LICENSE CHANGE TO OSI-APPROVED BSD LICENSE: STARTING WITH ITK 3.6
Luis Ibanez
luis.ibanez at kitware.com
Thu Mar 20 09:41:05 EDT 2008
Hi Kurt,
Thanks for your question.
This is a very important point indeed.
Just as the previous ITK license, the new BSD license
*DOES NOT REQUIRE* you to release the source code of
the applications that you build on top of ITK.
If you have built a commercial application based on ITK,
the new license *does not impose any new restriction* on
your application.
You can still do things like:
a) Use ITK as a library for a medical image application
that you distribute commercially. You are not required
to pay any royalties to the Insight Software Consortium,
and you are not required to release the source code of
your application.
b) You are allowed to redistribute ITK.
You are welcome and encouraged to burn CDs with ITK and
give them away. You can also sell those CDs without having
to share any profits with the Insight Software Consortium.
You can also create web mirrors for redistributing ITK and
share the joy with the world.
c) You can take ITK, modify it, and redistribute it.
You can also sell your modified version of ITK.
[as long as you keep the original copyright notices,
and do not use the name of the Insight Software Consortium
to claim that it is endorsing your modified ITK].
Note that you have the right to *add* your own copyright
notices on the ITK files that you modify and that you have
the freedom to choose any license for distributing your
modified version of ITK. You can as well, including the
use of a restrictive commercial license if you choose to
do so.
Please let us know if you have any other questions
regarding the license change.
Thanks
Luis
-----------------
kurt Zhao wrote:
> Hi Luis,
>
> Thanks for the update.
>
> My understanding is that under the previous license, if ITK is adopted
> for commercial usage, the commercial software doesn't have to be open
> source. Is it correct? If so, is this assumption changed under the new
> license?
>
> Thanks!
>
> -Kurt
>
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 1:48 AM, Luis Ibanez <luis.ibanez at kitware.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear ITK Users,
>>
>> Starting with ITK 3.6, The Insight Toolkit will be distributed
>> under the new-and-simplified BSD License approved by the Open
>> Source Initiative (OSI):
>>
>> http://www.itk.org/HTML/Copyright.htm
>>
>> As you probably know, the OSI (http://www.opensource.org/) is
>> the community-recognized body for reviewing and approving
>> licenses as conformant with the "Open Source Definition":
>>
>> http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd
>>
>> As the label of "Open Source" gains more and more positive
>> reputation, it is important to define very well what the label
>> means, and when is that the label can be applied to specific
>> software packages.
>>
>> The de-facto definition of Open Source today is:
>>
>> "to be distributed under an OSI-approved license"
>>
>> The previous license of ITK, was a modified version of the
>> traditional BSD license and as such, it was not an OSI-approved
>> license.
>>
>>
>> The new ITK BSD license and the previous ITK license differ
>> only in one of the terms. The previous license has four terms
>> (or conditions) while the new BSD license has only three.
>>
>>
>> The terms of the previous license read:
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
>> modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
>> are met:
>>
>> * Redistributions of source code must retain the above
>> copyright notice, this list of conditions and the
>> following disclaimer.
>>
>> * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
>> copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
>> disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials
>> provided with the distribution.
>>
>> * The name of the Insight Software Consortium, nor the names
>> of any consortium members, nor of any contributors, may be
>> used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
>> without specific prior written permission.
>>
>> * Modified source versions must be plainly marked as such, and
>> must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> ==================================================================
>>
>>
>> The terms of the new BSD license read:
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
>> modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
>> are met:
>>
>> * Redistributions of source code must retain the above
>> copyright notice, this list of conditions and the
>> following disclaimer.
>>
>> * Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
>> copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
>> disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided
>> with the distribution.
>>
>> * Neither the name of the Insight Software Consortium nor the names
>> of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products
>> derived from this software without specific prior written
>> permission.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> The difference between the two licenses is in the fourth
>> term of the previous license:
>>
>> * Modified source versions must be plainly marked as such, and
>> must not be misrepresented as being the original software.
>>
>>
>> The license change is therefore equivalent to removing one term
>> (or condition) and therefore the new license is "more open" (in
>> the sense that it is less restrictive and impose less conditions
>> on the recipients of the source code) than the previous license.
>>
>> We hope that this license change will benefit the great community
>> of ITK users, and that it will simplify their continued adoption
>> of the toolkit for research, education and commercial endeavors.
>>
>> We strongly encourage you, as users of Open Source software to
>> pay close attention to the licenses of all software (and any other
>> copyrighted material) that you adopt, to make sure that it conforms
>> to the expectations of the "Open source" label, as defined by the
>> Open Source Initiative:
>>
>> http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd
>>
>>
>> Note that previous versions of ITK (any version before ITK 3.6)
>> are still distributed under the previous ITK license.
>>
>>
>> Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any questions
>> or concerns regarding the change of the ITK License.
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>>
>> Luis
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Insight-users mailing list
>> Insight-users at itk.org
>> http://www.itk.org/mailman/listinfo/insight-users
>>
>>
>
>
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