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Term for software From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Beerware is a tongue-in-cheek software license with permissive terms, which grants the right to do anything with the source code, assuming the license notice is preserved.[3]
Author | Poul-Henning Kamp |
---|---|
Latest version | 42 |
Publisher | Yes |
Published | 1998[lower-alpha 1] |
SPDX identifier | Beerware |
Debian FSG compatible | Yes |
FSF approved | Yes (see "informal license" section)[2] |
OSI approved | No |
GPL compatible | Yes[2] |
Copyleft | No[2] |
Linking from code with a different licence | Yes |
Should the user of the code consider the software useful, they are encouraged to buy the author a beer "in return" if they ever meet. The Humanitarian-FOSS project at Trinity College recognized the "version 42" beerware license variant as an extremely permissive "copyright only" and GPL-compatible license.[3] According to the Free Software Foundation the license would be classified as an "informal" free, non-copyleft and GPL-compatible license, however more detailed licenses are recommended.[2]
Poul-Henning Kamp states preference of his Beerware license to other licenses, such as BSD and GPL, the latter of which he has described as a "joke".[4] The full text of Kamp's license is:[5]
/* * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- * "THE BEER-WARE LICENSE" (Revision 42): * <phk@FreeBSD.ORG> wrote this file. As long as you retain this notice you * can do whatever you want with this stuff. If we meet some day, and you think * this stuff is worth it, you can buy me a beer in return. Poul-Henning Kamp * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- */
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