GPLv3 Licenses Quadruple in 2009, but GPL Projects Drop by Five Percent From 2008 Levels

WALTHAM, MA, Jun 30 (MARKET WIRE) --
Open source license adoption trends indicate a new pragmatism in the open
source community, as evidenced by increasing diversity in license types
being chosen for open source projects. Most notable was the increasing
adoption of the GPLv3 license coupled with an overall five percent drop
in the number of projects adopting the GPL license generally. The
analysis was conducted by Black Duck Software, a leading provider of
products and services for accelerating software development through the
managed use of open source software (OSS).

GPL licenses, sometimes referred to as reciprocal licenses, are used in
more than 65 percent of open source projects evaluated by Black Duck.
Growth in the use of the GPLv3 license increased at a 4X rate
year-over-year, with 9,500 GPLv3 licenses in use in 2009, compared to
2,345 in 2008.

Despite strong growth in GPLv3 adoption, the percentage of projects using
GPL variants dropped from 70 to 65 percent, demonstrating that open source
software licensing is becoming more diverse, reflecting renewed pragmatism
on the part of open source developers and consumers. A recent indication
of this shift is the growth of the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL), an
OSI-approved license, which is now the tenth most popular license in the
Black Duck Software Knowledge Base.

The GPLv3 license this year moved past the Mozilla, MIT and Apache
licenses to the number five spot behind BSD. Black Duck estimates that
the current rate of adoption will see GPLv3 pass BSD in about six months.
Many large projects, including Linux, JBoss and Hibernate, have chosen to
remain with GPLv2.

"With more than 1,500 different open source licenses in use, it is
possible for software developers to choose a license that closely
reflects their intentions for the use of their software," observed Peter
Vescuso, executive vice president of marketing and business development,
Black Duck Software. "Many developers are selecting licenses that are less
restrictive, a move that underscores the broader adoption and value of
open source in today's multi-source development environments."

The top 10 open source licenses in use are:

License Percentage Rank
GNU General Public License (GPL) 2.0 50.06
GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 2.1 9.63
Artistic License (Perl) 8.68
BSD License 2.0 6.32
GNU General Public License (GPL) 3.0 5.10
Apache License 2.0 3.91
MIT License 3.80
Code Project Open 1.02 License 3.35
Mozilla Public License (MPL) 1.1 1.25
Microsoft Public License (MS-PL) 1.02
Source: http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss

An additional trend in the growth of open source confirms how
licenses are being employed to support revenue-based business models.
From straight open-source licensing to dual licensing, more businesses
are moving to "open-core" licensing approaches. Matt Aslett, Enterprise
Software Analyst for The 451 Group, says, "Open-Core Licensing --
offering proprietary commercial extensions around an open source core --
has become a popular strategy for generating revenue from an installed
base of open source users." Examples of projects embracing this approach
include MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Continuent.

Black Duck spiders the Internet collecting open source and other
downloadable code into a repository called the Black Duck KnowledgeBase, a
database of more than 200,000 open source projects with tens of billions
of lines of code from over 4,100 unique Internet sites. Daily updates of
license statistics can be found at http://www.blackducksoftware.com/oss

To listen to a podcast discussion of open source licensing trends with Tim
Yeaton, CEO of Black Duck software, visit
http://ducks.blackducksoftware.com/~webmedia/_Podcasts/BDS_Tim_Yeaton_6_29_09.mp

About Black Duck Software

Black Duck Software is the leading global provider of products and
services for accelerating software development through the managed use of
open source and third-party code. Black Duck(TM) enables companies to
shorten time-to-market and reduce development and maintenance costs while
mitigating the risks and challenges associated with open source reuse,
including hidden license obligations, security vulnerabilities,
unsupported open source and version proliferation. The company is
headquartered near Boston and has offices in San Francisco, Amsterdam and
Hong Kong, as well as distribution partners throughout the world. For
more information, visit www.blackducksoftware.com.

Black Duck, Know Your Code and the Black Duck logo are registered
trademarks of Black Duck Software, Inc. in the United States and other
jurisdictions. Koders is a trademark of Black Duck Software, Inc. All
other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.

Copyright 2009, Market Wire, All rights reserved.

-0-