License proliferation refers to the problems created when additional software licenses are written for software packages. License proliferation affects the free software community. Often when a software developer would like to merge portions of different software programs they are unable to do so because the licenses are incompatible. When software under two different licenses can be combined into a larger software work, the licenses are said to be compatible. As the number of licenses increases, the probability that a Free and open source software (FOSS) developer will want to merge software together that are available under incompatible licenses increases. There is also a greater cost to companies that wish to evaluate every FOSS license for software packages that they use. Strictly speaking no one is in favor of license proliferation. Rather the issue stems from the tendency for organizations to write new licenses in order to address real or perceived needs for their software releases.
Read more about License Proliferation: Compatible Licenses, Vanity Licenses, Google's Stance, OSI's Stance, FSF's Stance, FSFE's Stance
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