The Significance of Open Source Licensing

How important is open source licensing?

It’s easy to deem open source licenses as less important than say, code quality, documentation or software security. But it turns out that even now, decades after the birth of open source, licenses are still considered a very significant part of open source software.

They’re so important in fact, that according to a joint survey from Tidelift and The New Stack, 86% of respondents identified an “acceptable open source license” as a crucial determinant of whether or not to use an open source package. 61% of these even described open source licenses as “extremely important”. The respondents belonging to larger companies (companies with more than a thousand employees) had the same response, with 78% agreeing it is “extremely important.”

Why Is Open Source Licensing So Important?

Of course open source licensing isn’t the only important factor influencing the selection of open source packages. In the said survey the activity volume of an open source package, which is measured in the number of pulls, commits and the like, ranks just as highly in importance. This is followed by maintainer responsiveness at 80%, and other influential factors such as community and documentation at 65% and 72% respectively.

What sets open source licensing apart from all these other factors however, is its impact on the decision to go ahead with an open source solution. In many cases, it can be the deciding factor right out of the gate.

While difficult documentation or a small community may be discouraging to some developers, in most cases these don’t entirely deter them from still using the software, especially if there is a pressing need for it. An unacceptable open source license however, can turn even the most promising open source package sour for developers. That’s because no developer wants to get into an unfamiliar open source package without knowing how to get out. This is also one of the main reasons why the use of highly permissive licenses, such as MIT and Apache have been on the rise whereas the use of more restrictive ones have been on a decline.

“Uphill Battle” Licenses

Apart from securing exit points for themselves, developers don’t want to have to fight an uphill battle when it comes to licenses, which can be the case when they are advised by their legal departments on what licenses are acceptable. Often these include only a handful of license types, and anything other than those specified will require a lot of work from the developer to get an exception.

Such restrictions however, are in place for good reason. They’re to ensure that developers lean more towards licenses with easy exits or light requirements, and avoid licenses that can only complicate compliance. Such licenses include vanity licenses that differ very little from already established ones, but can cause a host of compliance issues down the line. From a practicality standpoint such licenses fail miserably, which is why more often than not they will deter developers right from the start.

This further proves just how important open source licensing is, and in particular the choice of open source license made. If you’re an open source developer keen on making your software more accessible (as open source software ought to be), it’s best to opt for an open source license that allows such accessibility, and one that is widely-accepted by the community.