Why the proliferation of open source licenses?

 

Is the proliferation of open source licenses just another example of programmers living NYI (Not Invented Here) syndrome? I know there are some big differences between some of the big licenses (eg, GPL, Apache, BSD) but when you start looking to see many projects creating their own licenses. Why?

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_licenses
http://developer.kde.org/documentation/licensing/licenses_summary.html

This is a known issue: the Open Source Initiative has a License Proliferation Committee, which recommends the use of one of eight licenses that are "popular and widely used or with strong communities."

  • Apache License, 2.0
  • New BSD license
  • GNU General Public License (GPL version 2 or 3)
  • GNU Library or "Lesser" General Public License (LGPL version 2.1 or 3)
  • MIT license
  • Mozilla Public License 1.1 (MPL)
  • Common Development and Distribution License
  • Eclipse Public License

    • Other licenses are classified as: "redundant" (eg, the NCSA license is redundant with BSD), "special use" or "non-reusable" (eg, the NASA license, the Apple Public Source License), "superceded" (eg, MPL v1.0), and so on.

    Having your own license (usually a variant on one of the existing ones) allows you full control over it. I suspect that things like the huge change between GPL2 and GPL3 (especially if you deal with web services) make people leery of licensing with an agreement outside of one's control.

    I also think some licenses are closely tied to certain ideologies. Many Creative Commons license users have the same attitude towards copyright legislation. The GPL, on the other hand, has a long history with Linux development. An individual or organization which does not agree with the philosophies generally attached a specific license may choose to look for an alternative.

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