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Software licensing

Closed source

If you are a staff member doing work for the University of Waterloo your code most likely falls under “assigned tasks” as defined by Policy 73.

“Works created or modified by members of the University as assigned tasks in the course of their normal employment, and which are intended to assist in the operation, administration and/or management of the University’s affairs”

In this case it should be assumed that all code is “closed source” under our official closed source license unless it has gone through the process outlined below.

Source available

Source available licensing is subject to an approval process. See “Open sourcing my code” below.

The purpose of this license is to ensure the University of Waterloo maintains full control of a project’s code by preventing re-distribution and re-sale, while still allowing others to freely use the software.

Consider using this for larger projects that the University of Waterloo wishes to share with other institutions in the spirit of collaboration.

Projects can use this source available license.

Open source

Open source licensing is subject to an approval process. See “Open sourcing my code” below.

The purpose of this license is to contribute to the free and open source software development community. This class of license is entirely permissive and will allow anyone to utilize your project for any purpose including re-licensing and re-selling.

Consider using this for small projects which contain no intellectual property, and if freely available, will offer no competitive advantage to the 3rd party.

Projects can use one of the following open source Licenses:

Open sourcing my code

If you wish to relicense work owned by the University of Waterloo under one of our source available or open source (GPLv3 / MIT) licenses, you must submit an Intent to Relicense request.

The Intent to Relicense process will guide you through the following steps:

  1. Pick a license
  2. Provide project details
  3. Fill out impact to institution
  4. Fill out software practices checklist
  5. Perform audit by secondary group
  6. Present to UCIST for final approval