The CopperSpice libraries are released under the LGPL version 2.1 license. The KitchenSink demo application is released under the BSD 2 clause license.

License options for your Applications

There are choices about the licensing for any applications developed at your company, personally, or professionally.

Use the CopperSpice LGPL license and release your application under a GPL compatible license
- Charging a fee for your application is permitted
- Users of your application can ask for a copy of your source code, modify the code and then redistribute as they see fit
- You are required to provide the source code to anyone who has a copy of the binary files
Use the CopperSpice LGPL license and release your application as an LGPL or commercial application
- Charging a fee for your application is permitted
- Users are not entitled to a copy of your source code, however you may distribute the code
- Users must be able to link your application to a new version of the CopperSpice LGPL libraries
- Any changes you make to the CopperSpice libraries must be made available to your users or upstreamed

Distribution Requirements

Some of the libraries in CopperSpice leverage other projects which may have a license with different terms than CopperSpice. The following table contains a summary of considerations developers should be aware of.

Library	Dependency	Licensing Issue
CsNetwork	OpenSSL	Some configurations of CsNetwork use OpenSSL at run-time. Deployment of OpenSSL libraries is subject to both licensing and export restrictions. Additional information can be found in the CopperSpice API documentation for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Classes and the OpenSSL website.

About Open Source Software

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is software that comes with a license that gives users certain rights. In particular the right to use the software, to modify it, to obtain its source, and to pass it on (under the same terms). Notice that the term "free" is about rights, not money. The Free Software Foundation, the creator of the GNU GPL, speaks of free in this context as in "free speech", not as in "no cost".

The Free Software Foundation is clear, applications which link to LGPL libraries need not be released under LGPL. The only requirement is to allow new versions of the CopperSpice libraries to be linked with your application.

The following are links you may wish to read for more information about the meaning of the terms GPL and LGPL.

LGPL vs GPL

GNU GPL, GNU LGPL

Open Source Licensing

LGPL and Java