com.Ostermiller.util License FAQ

Under what license are these utilities available?

The OstermillerUtils library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Why is the GPL used?

Stephen chose to license the com.Ostermiller.util Java utilities under the GNU General Public License. The GPL encourages open source development by requiring that derivatives remain open source. Anybody who distributes code based on these utilities must license that code under the GPL.

Could it be licensed under something less restrictive?

Many people request they receive a copy of the utilities licensed under the Library General Public License (LGPL) or a BSD style license. The answer is firmly "no". Those Licenses do not ensure that derivative works remain liberated. If such a license were given, the libraries could then be used in closed source applications.

How about a special one-time license just for this awesome project?

The com.Ostermiller.util utilities have many contributing authors. Requesting the permission of all those authors is not possible since they do not all believe that one-time licenses should be awarded no matter how deserving the project.

License