OPEN SOURCE VS. COMMERCIAL LICENSING

A few weeks ago, I learned about the necessity of publishing code under a license and now that I have had the chance to implement proper licensing into assignments that I have been tasked with, I wanted to take a second and closer look at the positives and negatives associated with publishing software as “Open Source” as opposed to under commercial licensing. Before writing this blog post, I did some research and came across a blog titled, “Open Source vs. Commercial Software License: What Do You Need?” by Frank Amissah, which does a good job comparing and differentiating open-source licensing from commercial licensing. 

OPEN SOURCE:

Open source code is source code that has been made available to the public for free, allowing for anyone to read, share, or modify it. Open software licensing is divided into two categories, these being “Permissive” and “Copyleft”. Permissive licensing is less restrictive, allowing people to do as they please with the code, often only requiring the original author to be credited. Copyleft licensing is more restrictive, requiring future redistribution of code under a copyleft license to also abide by the terms of the originally implemented copyleft license. Open source code is easily accessible and adaptable by a community. The ease of acquiring the code also allows for a large scale of quality improvements and innovation provided by the community to be officially implemented. This, however, comes as a downside being that there is very limited funding for the future development of the code and if its users lose interest, it will ultimately be abandoned entirely.

COMMERCIAL LICENSING:

Commercial licensed software is usually proprietary and is distributed with the intent of its developer making a profit. The terms of use of the software is identified directly by the developer, but in general, licenses for their use will exist in the forms of subscription services or one-time payments, either for one user or an entire team of users. Benefits of using a commercial license include establishing direct ownership of the software for its users, as well as constant funding for improvements through the purchasing of copies of the software. On the other hand, commercial licenses often cost a lot of money to their customers, have longer development cycles for implementing changes, and suffer highly from piracy of the software. 

This blog post effectively compared the similarities and differences of both open source and commercial licensed software, even going so far as to teach me that the choice for which license to implement will come down to the goals of the project, as well as its intended audience and cost of operation. It was also formatted in a very user-friendly way, using well-organized diagrams to prove its point. Going forward, I feel that I will be more inclined to take my time weighing my choices when it comes to choosing the right license for my projects, especially now that I have been made aware of the difference one can make.

Blog Referenced: Open Source vs. Commercial Software License: What Do You Need? | Turing