July 1st, 2009
Is the GPL losing its grip?
In the latest Black Duck analysis of open source licensing trends, it appears on the surface that the GPL has lost significant market share.
That is, until you look inside the numbers.
Versions of the GPL are currently being used by 65% of all projects, down from about 70% a year ago, with V3 licensing now on track to become the fourth most-widely used license by the end of the year.
The only non-GPL licenses to attract significant usage are the Artistic License and the standard BSD. But the GPV v3 should, at its present rate of growth, pass the latter in share within six months, the report says. Over half of all projects are still licensed under GPL v2.
The Artistic License, originally credited to Larry Wall, is the only open source license to have gone through a successful court challenge, specifically that of Jacobsen v. Katzer, where a district court is still considering an SFLC request for injunctive relief.
The best-known project under the Artistic License is Perl, but that project is dual-licensed under the GPL. There are also multiple versions of the Artistic License — Version 1.0, Version 2.0, and clarified. The Black Duck project did not break them out.
Black Duck’s analysis of its own figures, however, is that “open core” licensing is on the rise and that open source licensing is becoming more diverse, less “restrictive.”
So is the GPL losing its grip as the dominant open source license? I don’t think so but I can be persuaded.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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