Some may conclude that discussing some license details may be overly picky but there are significate differences in different license types.

Open Source

There is a strict criteria for a software package to be considered Open Source. The Open Source Initiative provides a strict definition of the term and evaluates many licenses as conforming or non-conforming. Any package release under an OCI-approved license can be installed on the FRCE cluster with no other approvals. The most common open source licenses include the GPL2, GPL3, BSD (with other variants in existence), Apache, and MIT licenses. Even though these are all open source, there are significant differences in how the software can be distributed or included in other software packages.
  The large majority of packages installed on FRCE meet the definition of open source.

Academic Licenses

A considerable number of software packages have been released with various restrictions limiting use to non-commercial and/or academic use only. FNLCR generally meets the definition for academic use although it can be unclear in some cases if FNLCR can actually install & use the software. In the edge cases, we will contact the software owners and request explicit approval to install the packages. Some academic licenses are also granted only to specific users and/or groups who have been issued the license.
  Some packages falling in this category include cryoSPARC, majiiq, resmap, and bcl2fastq2.

Self-Written licenses

Software released under a unique license has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. These licenses are often vague in the exact terms of use and will need careful examination before installing the affected software packages.
  ViennaRNA and NAMD are good examples of this type of license.

Commercial Licenses

Easy to understand in concept. Installation of the software is prohibited unless a license is purchased. Specific license terms still need to be examined to determine if use is allowed by any person in FNLCR or if use has to be restricted to particular groups owning the license.
  Packages here include Matlab, Schrodinger, Amber, and the Intel compiler suite

Unlicensed Software

Under a strictly technical and legal viewpoint, if a particular piece of software is available but without a specific license attached to it, it is not possible for any person other than the software's owner to use the package. This is generally not the intent of the author but in these cases the author should be contacted to receive explicit permission to use the package. The author should also be encouraged to re-release the software under an explicit license.
  No unlicensed software packages have been installed on the FRCE cluster.

Source-Available packages

Even if the source code to a software package is freely available it does not mean that it is necessarily usable. Source-available packages will fall into one of the categories already discussed.