software licences

• a software licence is a licence agreement giving permission to an individual or an organisation to use a piece of software

  • usually illegal to buy one copy of a program and copy it to multiple computers
  • instead of buying multiple licences, an organisation may buy a site licence which allows the software to be copied to a specified number of computers
• One way to classify software is through ownership and licensing. There are two types of ownership and licensing software:

  • open source software
  • proprietary software

  A) copy

  B) modify

  C) share

  D) cost

  E) licence

  F) freely

  G) available

  H) software

  I) manufacturer

  J) developers

  K) software manufacturer

  L) community

  M) orderly

  N) thoroughly

  O) formal

  P) variety

  Q) individual

  R) adapt

  S) source

  T) simple

  U) technical

  
• open source software can be free of copyright and anyone can modify

  advantages:

  • costs nothing and anyone can modify it for their own purposes
  • many authors - refine and improve over time
  • A modified version, known as a derivative, must also be made freely available for anyone else to use or adapt.

  disadvantages:

  • no guarantee it works properly because no one ensures it is bug free
  • support might not be readily available especially if the program is not in widespread use

  examples: Linux, Audacity, Firefox
• proprietary software is copyrighted - only obtained by paying for a license

  advantages:

  • should be free of bugs - updates known as patches are provided free of charge
  • help can be sought from organisation who supplied the software
  • feature updates which extend the facilities
  • support available from many sources
  • initial / ongoing (subscription) cost
  • software can't be adopted to meet needs of the user. only machine code version of the software is distributed
  • limited to a single computer / network so unless the licence allows it, a user may not redistribute the software.