Open source
Licences, development models, governance, sustainability and how to contribute.
AGPL: the copyleft designed for software offered over a network
Why the AGPL exists, what it requires from anyone running a web service on modified code, and how to handle it in a company without surprises.
Apache License 2.0: patents, NOTICE file and practical duties
Apache 2.0 is permissive but more structured than MIT: the patent grant, the termination clause, the NOTICE file and the changes you must declare.
How to choose the license for your open source project
A five-question procedure for choosing a new project's license: goals, dependencies, patents, network services and the community you expect to build.
CLA and DCO: what you sign when you contribute to a project
Contributor License Agreements, copyright assignment and the Developer Certificate of Origin: differences and implications for contributors and owners.
A code of conduct for an open source project: writing and enforcing it
What a code of conduct is for, what it should contain, who receives reports and how to handle them fairly: practical guidance for project maintainers.
Contributing to open source without writing code
Documentation, translations, issue triage, testing releases, user support and design: the non-technical contributions open source projects need the most.
Open source in the enterprise: internal policy and the OSPO
How a company can use, contribute to and publish open source with clear rules: policy, approvals, inventory and the role of an Open Source Program Office.
Evaluating an open source project before adopting it
Activity, maintainers, releases, security handling, documentation and license: a concrete checklist for choosing free software that will last over time.
Your first contribution to an open source project, step by step
From choosing a project to an accepted pull request: how to find your way, read the rules, propose a small change and handle code review calmly.
Forking an open source project: when it makes sense and how
Technical fork versus community fork, typical reasons, well-known examples, name and license issues and concrete steps to launch a sustainable fork.
Funding an open source project: donations, sponsors, services
Donations, corporate sponsorship, support contracts, grants and bounties: how an open source project can sustain itself and the trade-offs involved.
GPLv2 vs GPLv3: what really changes between the two versions
Patents, tivoization, compatibility and the «or later» clause: the concrete differences between GPLv2 and GPLv3 and how to read them before choosing.
LGPL and MPL: how weak copyleft works for libraries
LGPL and MPL 2.0 let you use free libraries in proprietary software under certain conditions: linking, single files, obligations and real cases.
Licenses for documentation and data: Creative Commons and ODbL
Documentation, images and datasets are not code: how to use Creative Commons, CC0 and ODbL in open projects and why not to apply them to software.
Open core and the business models of open source companies
Open core, dual licensing, managed services and support: how companies that publish free software make money and what each model means for their users.
Open source development models: community, company, foundation
Projects led by volunteers, by a company or by a foundation: how decisions, releases and risks differ, and how to tell which model you are looking at.
Open source foundations: what they do and why they matter
Trademark protection, fund management, neutrality between companies and legal support: the role of foundations in open source and their main models.
Open source license compatibility: combining different code
When MIT, Apache, GPL and MPL code can be joined in the same project, how to reason about the direction of compatibility and which cases to avoid.
Open source project governance: who decides and how
Benevolent dictator, maintainers, technical committee, voting and consensus: open source governance models and how to write a useful GOVERNANCE.md.
Permissive vs copyleft licenses: the differences that matter
MIT, BSD and Apache on one side, GPL and AGPL on the other: what really changes between permissive and copyleft licenses when you use or ship code.
Reporting a bug to an open source project the useful way
How to write an issue maintainers can actually fix: minimal reproduction, versions, logs, expected behaviour and what to leave out of the report.
Reproducible builds and signed releases in open source projects
Why public code is not enough: checksums, release signatures, signed tags and reproducible builds to prove the binary really comes from the source.
Source-available licenses: why they are not open source
BSL, SSPL and the Elastic License show the code but restrict its use: how to recognise them, what they forbid and what they mean for adopters.
SPDX and SBOMs: managing license compliance in a company
SPDX identifiers, the REUSE specification and the software bill of materials: how to keep licenses and dependencies under control as a product grows.
Handling vulnerabilities in an open source project
SECURITY.md, a private channel, coordinated disclosure, advisories and CVE IDs: how an open source project fixes a flaw without exposing its users.