Fossil DSCM Relicensed with BSD License.
2010-05-16 15:00 Fossil Distributed SCM is now licensed with a permissive, business-friendly BSD License.Fossil is multi-platform (MS Windows, Apple OS X, Linux, *BSD), distributed SCM software. It has an integrated ticket system, wiki, web interface, and more. Details are available here.
Fossil is now also licensed with a BSD license.
Method Logic Digital has been working to get fossil and the NetBSD operating systemworking together, and requested of Richard Hipp (principle author of fossil, and involved with many other great projects) to consider relicensing the ``clear title'' code with a BSD license, versus the current GPL. Apparently, we were not alone.
On Method Logic Digital's re-licensing request, Hipp said, ``There have been several requests to relicense Fossil. [Yours] was one of them.''
Hipp has also liberally ``licensed'' software before. SQLite was intended to be put in the public domain. Unfortunately, in the United States (where Hipp lives and works) and some other domains, it's not so easy to give things away. See the SQLite copyright page, for examples of some of the caveats. In fact, declaring source code ``public domain'' simply isn't recognized in some domains.
Says Hipp, ``It would be very nice if the [intellectual property] system in the US and throughout the world made it less difficult to give things away. But I also recognize that nothing I do will change the status quo. So you work within the system.''
On the introduction of the BSD license to fossil, Hipp says: ``I thought GPL would be nice for Fossil. Fossil a stand-alone binary that doesn't need to link against other code with other licenses, so I figured the GPL would work fine. I also reasoned that the GPL would make it easier to open up the project to new developers. I was surprised to get a fair amount of push-back from developers about the GPL. For reasons that I do not understand, many people are uncomfortable with GPL. So I changed it. In less than 12 hours, I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from switching to BSD.''
``I also looked at the Apache Public Licenses. The 2-clause BSD license is shorter (way shorter). I figure shorter is better.''
Fossil prebuilt binaries are available for download, as well as it's own source code (login anonymously, then click a link (like this this for example), and follow the link to get a ``ZIP archive'') for those who want to build it themselves.
Grab a copy and start hacking on your own projects, or contributing to fossil itself!