CPL as a Template
IBM has long participated in the open source community. Its involvement along with other major software companies in the Linux project, the Apache project, and many other open source activities is well known. IBM also has its own commercial open source license, the IBM Public License, one of many vendor-specific licenses approved by Open Source Initiative.
But IBM also wanted a license that was available for other companies to use, companies who were distributing open source software that might be useful for IBM and others to use or sell with no ambiguous license provisions hanging over them.
IBM's attorneys designed the Common Public License (CPL) to be a template license. Here's how the template works: The CPL applies to “the ...
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