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Convertible Free Software License v1.3 (C-FSL v1.3)
Added 2026-08-29
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License Review Status from OSI
👤 Elmar Stellnberger🗓️ First Submitted: 2019-01-08📅 6 days💬 33 Events
Latest event👤 Rob Landley📅 2019-01-14Review
C-FSL-type licenses are designed to allow companies to perform bait-and-switch tactics on users, and labeling such practices as 'open source' is nothing new.Full Text
Full Name: Convertible Free Software License Version 1.3
Short Identifier: C-FSL v1.3
URL1: https://www.elstel.org/license/C-FSL-v1.3.pdf
URL2: https://www.elstel.org/license/C-FSL-v1.3.txt
Rationale and Distinguish:
While the BSD license allows the whole world to re-license and while
re-licensing is virtually impossible with GPL since every contributor
would need to consent the C-FSL license goes a practical intermediate
way restricting the right to re-license to a group called the original
authors. That way open source developers are not excluded from making
business with others who want to base a proprietary product on the given
piece of open source software.
Proliferation Category & Legal Review:
Other/Miscellaneous
The license has now been fully reworked by a lawyer. Besides this
Version 1.3 features easier and more user friendly forking.
list of software which uses C-FSL v1.1.:
qcoan: https://www.elstel.org/coan
xchroot, confinedrv, bundsteg, debcheckroot, dbschemacmd: also found at
www.elstel.org