Open Source Licensing

Licensing is an important design consideration when using an Open Source operating system, applications, and libraries in a commercial environment. Understanding and tracking the licenses used for the software on the system is essential to make sure that all legal requirements are met. While software licensing requires careful evaluation, open source software is used very commonly and effectively in commercial environments without issue. Each software component must be used under the terms of the license it is released under. For example, a different set of rules apply to using a library released under the GPL to one released under the LGPL. The Linux kernel is released under the GPL (GNU General Public License), which requires that all source code . Common open source licenses are the GPL, LGPL, MIT, BSD, and many others. EMAC will provide source code and configuration to customers for all open source software that has been delivered in binary form according to the terms of the applicable license. The Open Source Initiative maintains a list of approved Open Source licenses here: http://www.opensource.org/licenses. Note that this may not be an exhaustive list of all open source licenses encountered depending on the software packages utilized.