The Helix project, located at https://github.com/helixml/helix, is licensed under the terms of the HelixML license. Here, we will discuss the possible licensing options and examples for the Helix project.
- Permissive License (MIT License): The MIT License is a permissive free software license that originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It puts only very limited restrictions on reuse and has, therefore, been widely adopted for open-source software projects.
Example:
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.
Source: Open Source Initiative
- Copyleft License (GPL License): The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a widely used free software license, which guarantees end users the freedom to run, study, share, and modify the software. If the software is distributed, any derivative work must also be licensed under the GPL.
Example:
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
Source: GNU General Public License v3.0
- Commercial License: Commercial licenses are typically used when a company or individual wants to use open-source software for commercial purposes without being bound by the terms of the GPL or other copyleft licenses. These licenses often come with a fee and may include additional terms and conditions.
Example:
The specific terms and conditions of a commercial license would depend on the software vendor or author.
For the Helix project, the chosen license is the HelixML license, which is a custom license. To understand the terms and conditions of the HelixML license, refer to the HelixML License Agreement in the project’s GitHub repository.
Additional resources for understanding open-source licensing:
