Blue Oak Council License Test Suite

This document sets out a list of well known projects, placed in a loose taxonomy, that serve as a checklist when drafting public software license terms. When thinking about how a new license will work when applied to different kinds of software, running through this list can help.

This list can also serve as a research list for lawyers without technical backgrounds, who need to develop a sense of the kinds of software available.

Last Updated: February 2, 2022

We can think of software projects as falling into a few general categories and subcategories:

Applications meet a particular, non-technical need for end-users
- Standalone Applications provide all the functionality needed to meet the end-user need
  
  Examples:
  - Inkscape, a vector-image editor
  - Signal, a secure messaging application
- Plugins add more functionality to larger applications
  
  Examples:
  - Adblock Plus, a web browser extension that blocks advertisements on webpages
- Server Applications provide a server for client applications to contact
  
  Examples:
  - NGINX, a web server
  - WordPress, a web content management system
- Client Applications contact server applications
  
  Examples:
  - Firefox, a web browser
- Peer-to-Peer Applications act as both clients and servers
  
  Examples:
  - BitTorrent, a file sharing application
  - Ethereum, a peer-to-peer, blockchain-based processing system
Components are used to build applications
- Libraries provide code for developers to invoke
  
  Examples:
  - jQuery, a front-end JavaScript toolkit and compatibility layer
  - mongo-c-driver, a C driver for the MongoDB database
  - OpenSSL, a cryptography and SSL/TLS toolkit
- Frameworks invoke code that developers write
  
  Examples:
  - Ruby on Rails, a server-side web application framework
  - Ember, a full-stack web application framework
  - Cordova, a mobile application framework
- Services communicate with other programs
  
  Examples:
  - PostgreSQL, a SQL database
  - Network Time Protocol Daemon, a system daemon that synchronizes system clocks
Development Tools help developers make software
- Editors are the applications programmers use to write code
  
  Examples:
  - Emacs, a highly extensive text editor
  - Eclipse, a highly extensive integrated development environment
- Generators output source code
  
  Examples:
  - Bison, a parser generator
  - WebPack, a front-end JavaScript bundler
  - UglifyJS, a JavaScript minifier
  - Obfuscar, an obfuscator for .NET assemblies
- Analyzers take source code as input, and output useful information
  
  Examples:
  - ESLint, an extensible linter for JavaScript
  - Frama-C, a C-language analyzer toolkit
- Compilers take source code as input, and output binary code
  
  Examples:
  - GCC, a compiler for several languages
  - LLVM, a compiler for several languages
- Debuggers help programmers run programs step-by-step
  
  Examples:
  - GDB, a C debugger
- Package Managers download and install software components
  
  Examples:
  - npm, a package manager for JavaScript
  - RPM, a Linux system package manager
- Revision Control Systems manage changes to source code over time
  
  Examples:
  - Git, a distributed version control system
  - GitLab, an integrated source code management system
Platforms help users run applications
- Kernels makes computer hardware available for computer software to use
  
  Examples:
  - Linux, a UNIX-like operating system
- Base Systems perform small tasks from the command line
  
  Examples:
  - GNU coreutils, a collection of core UNIX utilities
  - BusyBox, a collection of core UNIX utilities for embedded systems
- Interpreters run programs written in interpreted languages
  
  Examples:
  - Python, a programming language interpreter
- Orchestrators set each each part of an application up to be run, and connect them together
  
  Examples:
  - Chef, a configuration management tool
  - Kubernetes, a container-based orchestration system