opalORB Licensing

The opalORB is made available under the Common Public License (CPL) as defined by http://www.opensource.org/, and thus is non-viral.  The CPL model license was developed and contributed to the open source community by IBM.  CPL has some terms that are similar to the widely used GPL, but there are some key differences. One such difference is in the area of re-licensing. It is more generous. So that one may compile a program licensed under the CPL without modification and license it under a proprietary license. Another key difference is in a patent clause designed to prevent unscrupulous contributors from contributing code which infringes on their patents and then attempting to charge royalties. In such a situation, the CPL requires the contributor to grant a royalty-free license to all recipients. This provides an extra level of protection for users.

It also means vendors can conveniently, and without worries, include products created with, or using, opalORB in their suite of proprietary products. Additional value can be created without additional risk or licensing cost.