Beerware is a
tongue-in-cheek software license with
permissive terms, which grants the right to do anything with the
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code or source, is a plain text computer program written in a programming language. A programmer writes the human readable source code to control the behavior of a computer.
Since a computer, at base, only ...
, assuming the license notice is preserved.
Description
Should the user of the code consider the software useful, they are encouraged to buy the author a
beer
Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grain—most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. The grain is mashed to convert starch in the ...
"in return" if they ever meet. The
Humanitarian-FOSS project at
Trinity College recognized the ''"version
42"'' beerware license variant as an extremely permissive "copyright only" and GPL-compatible license.
According to the
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...
the license would be classified as an "informal" free, non-copyleft and GPL-compatible license, however more detailed licenses are recommended.
states preference of his Beerware license to other licenses, such as
BSD and
GPL, the latter of which he has described as a "joke". The full text of Kamp's license is:
[
]
See also
*
0BSD a public domain equivalent license used by Toybox and explicitly allowed for Android
*
Anti-copyright license
*
Careware
*
Comparison of free and open-source software licenses
This comparison only covers software licenses which have a linked Wikipedia article for details and which are approved by at least one of the following expert groups: the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, the Debian Project and ...
*
Donationware
*
WTFPL
Notes
References
{{software distribution
Permissive software licenses
Beer culture