If you have held back the development of open source projects or free software because you do not understand the implications of various licenses, you are not alone. Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing helps you understand the various options available to you. This concise guide focuses on annotated licenses, offering detailed explanations of how they compare and interoperate, and how license choices affect project possibilities. After seeing a glimpse of copyright law, contracts, and the definition of "open source," a book dealing with the spectrum of licensing, including: MIT (or X), BSD, Apache and Academic Free licenses GPL, LGPL, and Mozilla The QT, Artistic, and Creative Commons license Classical Proprietary license Sun Community Source license and Microsoft Shared Source project This book is wrapped up by looking at the legal effects - both positive and negative - of open source / free software license. Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing bridge the gap between open source vision and the practical implications of its legal foundations. If the software is open source and free licenses interest you, this book will help you understand them.