Accepted ontology entry
A legal instrument attaching enforceable terms to a body of code — who may run, read, change, and redistribute it. Its parameters are jurisdictional enforceability and the copyright it modulates; it persists by traveling with every copy of…
A legal instrument attaching enforceable terms to a body of code — who may run, read, change, and redistribute it. Its parameters are jurisdictional enforceability and the copyright it modulates; it persists by traveling with every copy of the code it governs, reproducing its terms wherever the writing goes.
[formal: licentia codicis | substrate: behavior | horizon: generations | explicit: yes | epoch: 0.90]
A made legal instrument: authored terms binding what may be done with a body of source code.
Law specialized to the writing machines read.
No code, nothing to govern.
A software license depends on the contract that enforces its terms.
Plex is a tradeable license granting access to a service, making it a specific instance of the general category of software licenses.
Open-source is a specific type of software license that grants broad permissions for use, modification, and distribution. A competent speaker would call open-source 'a software license.' Files against the nearest kind.