I expected that the icon would be "OS" - for Open Source - but it appears to be "FOS". I assume that this stands for some mash-up of "Free Software" and "Open Source", possibly stemming from this discussion. I'm not sure where I stand on the name-of-the-site issue, but I do know that, currently,...

My job involves a lot of searching and evaluating software. I routinely have to find out whether a piece of software is actually 100% open source, and sometimes it is more difficult/tricky that it seems. Some claim to be open source but actually are not Some are partly and have non-open source ...

The UK spelling of the noun is "licence", and US "license". The standard for stack exchange seems to be US for tags: What should the standard spelling be - British or US? Please could someone with enough reputation create the synonym? Thanks

I've seen the following question: Are there any Open Source VoIP software? And I wanted to have this particular policy discussed early. Do we want question like: "What are open source software that do X?" or "What are open source alternatives to Y?"

I've noticed that we have two tags which essentially seem to mean the same thing: [license] and [licensing]. Which one should we keep? Or is there maybe a subtle distinction which might make it worth to keep both?

Now that we're growing really big, getting lots of questions, and plenty of really amazing active users, we should start spreading the word! From 7 Essential Meta Questions of Every Beta: Imagine you’ve just gotten on an elevator with a friendly stranger. You have precisely one floor to desc...

Creative Commons produce a family of related licenses. Most of these are Open licenses (not recommended for software) and are clearly on topic. A couple are not Open, but are very closely related to the Open licenses. Are these non-Open licenses on topic here, because they are members of a family...

We'll be entering public beta in about a week or so (hopefully), so we need to get word out to the rest of Stack Exchange about Open Source Stack Exchange. One of the best ways of doing this is with Community Promotion Ads. Here is part of the canonical spiel given on meta posts on graduated sit...

If code has a licence that allows sharing of modifications, is it possible to prevent it being hosted on a site that uses third party advertising? Do licences with this intent exist, or is it not possible to prevent advertising without losing the ability to share modifications?

This article describes a problem with a particular online software hub: The download-hosting site retreated after public outcry, removing the junkware it inserted into downloads of the popular GIMP image editing tool without the developers’ permission. In this case it was "public outcry" th...

There are some things that are common sense. For example, it's pretty clear that if someone licenses a software program with a free license, then a person using the software has certain freedoms involving the use and modification of the software. Other facts are not commonly known, however, and m...

This is similar to my other question, but specifically about Copyright rather than Licensing. Typically, each source file contains a line of the form Copyright 2010-2015, Me Is this strictly necessary, or would a single COPYRIGHT file at the root of the repository cover all files within the ...

We're in the phase of the site where almost everyone can create new tags. However, there's an important part of a tag that often gets missed out when they get created: the wiki. I have a rule for myself. If I create a tag, I have to demonstrate that it has value to the site, by writing the tag w...

Preamble There are two other questions, specifically related to Licensing and Copyright. In reviewing the answers and comments, I get the feeling that people generally consider the two to be the roughly same thing. If this is true, why do we worry about both? It seems to me that they are very...

I've started writing tag wiki's, but I'm getting this: That's the only thing on the page. The link is fine: http://opensource.stackexchange.com/edit-tag-wiki/70 So, what's happening here?

Or in more general terms: Can I take code which is licensed under a permissive open source license (like the BSD license) and distribute it under a copyleft free software license (like the GPL)? Microsoft and Apple seem to be allowed to take BSD (or similar) licensed code and distribute it under...

If I publish something on my website is a form of copyright automatically placed on that text? For example I know if you specifically say "This is published under [insert some cc license here]" then the copyright / usage rights are changed based on the terms of the license. However what I don'...

Can Opened Sourced Software be classified as a type of Free software? I was recently asked this and realized I was unsure the exact answer. I understand that an free software is not a type of opened source software, but I am unsure if the reverse is true or not.

Although it seems like we have only just started, in private beta years we've been doing this a long time. How are we doing? Is there anything that we should be doing but are not yet? Are we doing anything we shouldn't be? Are there any specific things we need to improve? Any topics that need mo...

I was reading a previously asked question: Can I distribute related software and hardware under the same license? And then it occurred to me that hardware have patents. Does this mean that you cant release hardware under lets say a Creative Commons license?

While I know you can release content under pre-made licenses, or choose to make your own. Although this is not recommended I undersand it can be done. My question is: Can the same be done with patents, can you customize the use of the design / piece of hardware?

I noticed these tags: large-project and small-project What's the purpose for these? P.S. Can we have puns for tag questions here too? (With this one, I tried...)

I was wondering, are there rules regarding putting a license onto a license, for example if I had a license and I applied it with a license, in many cases this would cause a loop hole. Is there any way to fix this?