License Disclaimer

If you are applying for a website-only project, please select "website-only" from the choices below and proceed.

The OW2 Forge was created to advance the development of middleware according to the Open Source development model. Choosing a license is a serious decision in the life of a project. Unless you definitely know what you do, please take some time to read the text of several licenses before making a choice about your project. Our Board, Management Office and Technology Council may help you find your way amongst different licenses and make a choice that would fit both your needs and OW2 policy.

The Project License shall be any open source software license which is a) approved by the Board of the Association for each Project in accordance with reasonable and appropriate criteria and b) compliant with the non-assertion commitment described in Section 4 of the IPR Policy document, and/or imposing at least a royalty-free license of any Necessary Claims which cover the contribution of such patent holder, and which is revocable in the case of lack of reciprocity.
As an Open Source consortium and community, and as described in its IPR Policy document, OW2 will accept as an Open Source license any software license abiding by the following criteria: (i) Freedom to redistribute, (ii) Source code must be included in the program, (iii) Freedom to create derivative works, (iv) Integrity of the author's source code (modifications must be distinguished from the original version), (v) No discrimination against persons or groups, (vi) No discrimination against fields of endeavor, (vii) Distribution of license (i.e redistribution of the software shall include the license and must not need the execution of further license), (viii) The license must not be specific to a product, (ix) The license must not restrict other software, (x) The license must be technology neutral. The majority of projects at OW2 have selected the LGPL which can be considered as the default license for the Consortium. Feel free to select another license, but be so kind as to explain the reasons of your choice in the description of your project (field below).

In any event, the OW2 Consortium will not be held responsible for legal discrepancies regarding your license. The consortium neither has the purpose, ability nor resources to ensure that you hold the required rights, including copyrights, to submit your project and decide on its license. THIS IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY AND YOUR LIABILITY. You may want to change the license for your project at a later date, so long as you have a legal capability to do so, and your file release clearly indicates this change, and your filemap categorization must be updated appropriately. It is your responsibility to include and update the license text in the sources of your project and to keep track of copyright owners. Changing the license may change the nature of the project, therefore such a move requires approval by the Board of Directors. Keep in mind that changing the license typically requires that all copyright holders agree to such change. Also be aware that choosing some licenses, including opting for public domain, may conflict with your domestic regulations depending of your country. Please note that license changes are not retroactive (i.e. do not apply to products already released under an Open Source license).