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There is only one criterion that makes a piece of software, open source - the License. Although the open source movement is founded upon other core pillars such as a community development model, community review and peer recognition; without the license, there is no movement.The management of licensing in most open source projects today is often poorly executed such that the project fails to grant the intended permissions. Just as the lack of coding discipline can lead to maintenance nightmares and unstable code; the lack of licensing discipline can cripple the legal usability of your code. We present examples found in popular Linux packages; discuss the threat Github presents to the open source movement; the benefits of SPDX; and conclude with six critical coding guidelines every developer should consider to ensure the legitimate usability of their code by everyone is preserved.
