Copyrights, Licenses and CDDL Illustrated

Copyrights, Licenses and CDDL Illustrated: "At the time CDDL was being introduced, I wanted to write an illustrated version of it. Merely because hardly anyone would read the full license text, even if they did, I doubt 9 out 10 would have understood it completely. A recent CDDL/GPL misunderstanding that made news and started flame wars, prompted me to revisit an old illustration.

One approach is to understand copyrights, patents and licenses. The rights in copyrights are mainly rights to copy, modify, distribute, perform and display some 'work'... Patents protect ones right to use, manufacture or sell an 'idea' ... License is a set of rules and permissions... Other approach is to compare familiar licenses with CDDL.

This matrix tries to express some proprietary-EULA, GPL, CDDL and BSD licenses in terms of the rights in copyrights and patent rights. A green tick and red cross are self explanatory. A grey '~' means that the license does not say anything - mostly it is an implied OK.



Now lets compare and contrast GPL, CDDL and BSD licenses "

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