Open-source, also called Free Software, is a frequent mode used by IT Department to make software available to third parties.

Statements in Software

In 2003, a study was undertaken within the IT department to review existing practices in terms of licensing of software, compare licensing via bilateral agreement to licensing based on open source principles and evaluate the various options for open source licensing (e.g. GPL, LGPL, …). The study has identified three components of what we called “Software Statements” which appear in published software, and have three distinct functions. At CERN, these three components are sometimes mixed up when software is published.

The study proposed that in the future CERN considers separately these three necessary components, and adopts the terminology below in order the reduce confusion. They are:

1.  Intellectual Property Statement
   Also called Copyright Statement, it specifies who owns the copyright

2. Distribution Conditions
   Also called "Distribution License", they specify what are the rights and obligations of those who receive the software.

3. Disclaimer
   It specifies the liability and warranty conditions.

Components two and three are often covered by what is called Publicly Available Licenses or Open Source Licences.

Publicly available Open Source Licences

Dozens of models of Open Source licenses have been developed by multiple sources (universities and academia such as the MIT; industry such as Sun, AOL or Trolltech; not-for-profit organizations such as the Free Software Foundation) and are made publicly available for use by organizations wishing to publish their software, whilst retaining the IPR..

The GPL and LGPL licenses developed by the Free Software Foundation (as well as variants of BSD License adapted by CERN to meet special requirements) are the most frequent open source licenses used by IT to publish source software. Choice of public license or version adapted for CERN is done after agreement with the CERN legal service