The Code Project Open License (CPOL) is a software license published by The Code Project, a community site for software developers. The license is mainly applied to content that is being published on the site. Its main points subject to the terms of the license are:
- Source Code and Executable Files can be used in commercial applications;
- Source Code and Executable Files can be redistributed; and
- Source Code can be modified to create derivative works;
- No claim of suitability, guarantee, or any warranty whatsoever is provided. The software is provided "as-is";
- The Article(s) accompanying the Work may not be distributed or republished without the Author's consent.
The license itself grants copyright and patent protection to the developer. The Code Project has a comparison of the CPOL to open-source licenses on their site. Further, the license provides a distinction and clarification between the source code available for download and the source code's author's articles and writings about that content.
The "Open" in the name Code Project Open License refers to the license offering accessibility to the software's source code. The license is not "Open" as defined by the Open Source Initiative because it places restrictions on how the software can be used, such as forbidding its use in illegal, immoral or improper material as well as a prohibition on commercial distribution of the code in isolation.
The CPOL is strictly for source code that is gratis, but is not recognized as a free or open license by the Free Software Foundation due to the restrictions within the CPOL forbidding usage for illegal purposes and the restrictions on selling the code without permission. The license is thus incompatible with the GNU General Public License and some other free software licenses.
Famous quotes containing the words code, project, open and/or license:
“Many people will say to working mothers, in effect, “I don’t think you can have it all.” The phrase for “have it all” is code for “have your cake and eat it too.” What these people really mean is that achievement in the workplace has always come at a price—usually a significant personal price; conversely, women who stayed home with their children were seen as having sacrificed a great deal of their own ambition for their families.”
—Anne C. Weisberg (20th century)
“If we should swap a good library for a second-rate stump speech and not ask for boot, it would be thoroughly in tune with our hearts. For deep within each of us lies politics. It is our football, baseball, and tennis rolled into one. We enjoy it; we will hitch up and drive for miles in order to hear and applaud the vitriolic phrases of a candidate we have already reckoned we’ll vote against.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I rarely speak about God. To God, yes. I protest against Him. I shout at Him. But to open a discourse about the qualities of God, about the problems that God imposes, theodicy, no. And yet He is there, in silence, in filigree.”
—Elie Wiesel (b. 1928)
“Nature is mythical and mystical always, and works with the license and extravagance of genius. She has her luxurious and florid style as well as art.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)