The Academic Free License is an open source / free software license written in 2002 by Lawrence E. Rosen, general counsel of the Open Source Initiative. Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... Generally speaking, free software license is a phrase used by the free software movement to mean any software license that meets the free software definition of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ... The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software. ...

The license grants similar rights to the BSD, MIT, UoI/NCSA and Apache licenses — licenses allowing the software to be taken proprietary — but was written to clarify perceived problems with those licenses: The BSD license is a permissive license and is one of the most widely used free software licenses. ... The MIT License, also called the X License or the X11 License, originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a license for the use of certain types of computer software. ... The University of Illinois/NCSA Open Source License is a permissive free software license, based on the MIT/X11 and BSD licenses. ... The Apache License (Apache Software License previous to version 2. ... Proprietary software is software that has restrictions on using and copying it, usually enforced by a proprietor. ...

• The AFL makes clear what software is being licensed by including a statement following the software's copyright notice;
• The AFL includes a complete copyright grant to the software;
• The AFL contains a complete patent grant to the software;
• The AFL makes clear that no trademark rights are granted to the licensor's trademarks;
• The AFL warrants that the licensor either owns the copyright or is distributing the software under a license;
• The AFL is itself copyrighted, with the right granted to copy and distribute without modification.

The AFL is not a popular license. In January 2006, only 42 [1] projects on Freshmeat used a version of the license. According to the Free Software Foundation, the AFL version 1.2 is not compatible with the GNU GPL; however, the FSF has not commented on the newer version 2.1. Eric S. Raymond, among others, contends the AFL is compatible with the GPL. ^{[citation needed]} 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Freshmeat is a website that allows computer users to keep track of the latest software releases and updates as well as write/read reviews and articles, send or receive comments to or from the author, and many other features. ... The Free Software Foundation logo The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit organization founded in October 1985 by Richard Stallman to support the free software movement (free as in freedom), and in particular the GNU project. ... The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ... Eric S. Raymond Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is the author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar and the present maintainer of the Jargon File (the printed version also known as The New Hackers Dictionary). Though the Jargon File established his original...

External links

• Text of the Academic Free License v1.2
• Text of the Academic Free License v2.1
• Text of the Academic Free License v3.0

• Allocation of the Risk by Lawrence Rosen (PDF) - reasoning behind the Academic Free License