License terminology:
- Licence:: Formal permission to use a product. Almost always non-exclusive (can be licensed to multiple users).
- Agreement: A mutual agreement between two parties, commonly accepted by agreeing to (terms of service) upon download/registration.
- Term:: The period of time the agreement is in force, almost always immediately to when the terms and conditions are accepted, either party can terminate the agreement if the other party fails to act according to the agreement.
- Warranty: An assurance of sort, that the product will serve it’s intended purpose for a minimum period of time. if a product is sold ‘As Is’ this addresses bugs and the developer’s limited liability for when problems may occur in the program and/or service.
- Limited use:: limiting a software’s use cases for it’s users, commonly used to forbid copying and/or efforts to reverse engineer
- Liability: An obligation or debt as a consequence of some event.
- Program: The software
- Reverse engineer: decompilation, forbidden in most agreements
- Backup copy: A copy of the software for archival purposes.
Classification of Software in Terms of Copyright
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Commercial
- Most purchased software is used under a commercial licence
- Software is covered by copyright
- Archival copy may be made
- Modifications to software not permitted
- Reverse engineering/decompilation forbidden
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Open Source
- Source code often developed collaboratively with the public.
- Author should be recognised and modified products must be released under same open source license.
- Often distributed under GNU GPL licence (general purpose licence).
- Software is free and may be shared.
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Shareware
- As per commercial software users must acquire license for its use.
- However users are allowed to use the software (under conditions e.g. for limited time, or using a limited version (certain features disabled)) before buying the licence.
- Users allowed to copy and distribute software.
- Should be viewed as a means of distribution.
- Modifications, reverse engineering, decompilation not permitted.
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Public Domain
- Copyright has been relinquished.
- Copies can be made with no restrictions.
- Modifications to software allowed.
- Decompilation allowed.
- Developing new products based on the work is allowed without restriction.