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This is the OpenMRS, Ltd ("OpenMRS") OpenMRS License FAQ. It aims to answer the most common questions people have about using and distributing code under Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL 2.0) + Health-Related Additional Disclaimer of Warranty and Limitation of Liability.

If you see any errors in this FAQ, or have suggestions for further questions, please contact OpenMRS at openmrs@openmrs.org. Note that these answers do not represent our license. The explanations are not legal advice. If you need to know exactly what the OpenMRS license requires, you need to read and understand the license itself; if you need legal advice, you need to talk to a lawyer.

Why did OpenMRS choose Mozilla Public License (MPL) 2.0 + Health-Related Additional Disclaimer of Warranty and Limitation of Liability?

There are several factors that initially attracted us to an MPL-based license originally:

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Why is there a disclaimer?

The disclaimer is Health-Related Additional Disclaimer of Warranty and Limitation of Liability is a tool provided afforded by MPL 2.0 that allows us to address our specific medico-legal needs without having to modify the license itself.

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  • add a conspicuous notice stating where to find the exact source to the binary you are distributing (Section 3.2)
  • if your documentation has a section dealing with licensing or the recipient's rights to the code, put a copy of the MPL 2.0 + Disclaimer in Health-Related Additional Disclaimer of Warranty and Limitation of Liability in it. (Section 3.5)

You may distribute any binaries you create under a license of your choosing, as long as it doesn't interfere with the recipients' right to the source under the MPL 2.0 (Section 3.2).

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How are OpenMRS Modules affected by the OpenMRS License?

MPL 2.0 + Disclaimer covers Health-Related Additional Disclaimer of Warranty and Limitation of Liability covers the core OpenMRS code and is used for all of the OpenMRS community-supported and distributed modules, but other modules are not required to be licensed under MPL 2.0.  In fact, modules do not have to be open source.  You are free to create a closed-source module and distribute it under any license you wish.  Module authors who are uncertain of how to license their module are encouraged to make their modules open source and, unless they have some reason to use a different license, use the same licensing as OpenMRS, but this is not a requirement for modules.

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