Alfresco Software Inc., an open-source enterprise content management software company, announced Feb. 23 that it will offer its next release under the GNU GPLV2 (General Public License version 2).
The companys software was previously licensed under a variation of the MPL (Mozilla Public License), with a clause requiring attribution.
Alfresco was far from alone in its previous use of a customized, MPL-style license. Others included SugarCRM, Socialtext, Scalix, and Zimbra. None of these licenses, however, had been approved yet by the Open Source Initiative (OSI), the body that governs open-source licenses.
Now, however, according to Danese Cooper, Intels senior director of open source strategy and secretary/treasurer of the OSI, there seems to be a growing trend back to the GPLv2 from the customized MPLs.
“ComPiere Inc.,” an ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management) software company, Cooper said, “made the same choice a couple of months ago.”
Alfresco seemingly agrees. In its press release, the company stated that Alfresco is leading what is expected to be an increasing number of open-source application companies to adopt the GPL.