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Intellectual Property Issues in Open Source
This document discusses several main issues regarding open source software licenses: 1. It outlines common elements of open source licenses including allowing users to perform acts like installation, use, and modification of source code. 2. It describes different types of open source licenses like the GPL, MIT, and BSD licenses and how the GPL includes a "copyleft" or viral clause requiring derivatives to also be open source. 3. It discusses legal issues that can arise with open source licenses like license compatibility, patents, and third party rights. Proper contributor agreements can help address ownership and copyright issues.
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Intellectual Property Issues in Open Source
- 1. ( )Main IPissues concerning OSS Dr Andrés Guadamuz
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- 7. ( )Legal conservation areas Byhowardignatius http://www.flickr.com/photos/howardignatius/3492077372/
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- 9. ( )Creative Commons Attribution:Every CC licenses allows the world to copy and distribute a work provided that the licensee credits the creator/licensor. The author may include these other elements: NonCommercial: licensees can use the work for non-commercial purposes. No Derivatives: the work cannot be modified. ShareAlike: the work can be copied, modified and distributed if the author releases the derivative under the same license.
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- 12. ( ) Human-Readable Commons Deed Lawyer-Readable LegalCode Machine-Readable Digital Code <a rel="license" href="http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/ 3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by- sa/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/ 3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License</a>.
- 13. ( )Licenses BY Attribution BY-NCAttribution - Non Commercial BY-SA Attribution - Share Alike BY-ND Attribution - No Derivatives BY-NC-SA Attribution - Non Commercial - Share Alike BY-NC-ND Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives
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- 15. ( )Spectrum ofrights
- 16. ( )Legal issues ⊛Licenses, licenses, licenses ⊛ Patents ⊛ Contract formation ⊛ Third party rights ⊛ Enforcement
- 17. ( )Common elements ⊛Licenses allow users to perform acts that they would otherwise would not be allowed to. ⊛ Some rights reserved. ⊛ Grant of license allows installation, use, reuse, publishing, decompilation, interoperability, etc. ⊛ Access to the source code is a must.
- 18. ( )Licenses ⊛ OpenSource Initiative (OSI) lists 69 approved licenses. ⊛ In 2007 I conducted an informal survey finding 245 licenses. ⊛ Black Duck database lists now over 1000 licenses.
- 19. ( )OSI categories ⊛License that are popular and widely used or with strong communities ⊛ Special purpose licenses ⊛ Other/Miscellaneous licenses ⊛ Licenses that are redundant with more popular licenses ⊛ Non-reusable licenses ⊛ Superseded licenses ⊛ Licenses that have been voluntarily retired ⊛ Uncategorized Licenses
- 20. ( )Rosen’s classification ⊛ Academiclicenses: Academic licenses place no requirements whatsoever on the license user. ⊛ Reciprocal licenses: Require some form of reciprocity, usually that any derivatives of the software be released under the same license. ⊛ Standard licenses: They seek to create a base standard of software and documentation. ⊛ Content licenses: Protect non-software elements, such as pictures and music.
- 21. ( )Academic (BSD) ⊛Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: ⊛ Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. ⊛ Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. ⊛ Neither the name of the <ORGANIZATION> nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
- 22. ( )Copyleft ⊛ Actually,it is not the opposite of copyright, in fact, it uses copyright for protection. ⊛ Copyleft is a licensing method by which the work is protected by copyright, but it will have a specific clause that allows a work to remain “open” through a share-alike or viral clause. ⊛ Openness in this context means that the original work and whatever derivatives must remain available to the public in one way or another.
- 23. ( )General Public License(GPL) ⊛ Allows licensees to use and distribute the software. ⊛ Contains “viral” element, all works that are derived from the license must be distributed with the GPL. ⊛ The “Lesser General Public License” contains the same terms as the GPL, but gives additional permissions to those who wish to re-distribute code.
- 24. ( )Copyleft clause GPLv2 ⊛ “2(b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.”
- 25. ( )GPL v3 ⊛It is longer, and more complex than its predecessor. ⊛ Take-up by developers has been slow. ⊛ Boosted viral clause (it now may apply to other software included with the GPL software). ⊛ Restricts the use of Technical Protection Measures. ⊛ Includes a patent licence.
- 26. ( )Top 10licenses (2013) Rank License % 1 GNU General Public License (GPL) 2.0 32.65% 2 Apache License 2.0 12.84% 3 GNU General Public License (GPL) 3.0 11.62% 4 MIT License 11.28% 5 BSD License 2.0 6.83% 6 ArFsFc License (Perl) 6.27% 7 GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 2.1 6.19% 8 GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) 3.0 2.62% 9 Eclipse Public License (EPL) 1.61% 10 Code Project Open 1.02 License 1.33%
- 27. ( )New copyleft clause ⊛“5.c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. This License gives no permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.”
- 28. ( )Enforcement ⊛ Germancourt cases (GPL validity): ⊛ Sitecom (Munich) ⊛ Fortinet (Munich) ⊛ D-Link (Frankfurt) ⊛ SCO v IBM (copyright infringement) ⊛ Jacobsen v Katzer (contract formation) ⊛ Wallace v IBM (competition law)
- 29. ( )Creative Commons Cases ⊛Curry v. Audax (Netherlands) ⊛ Pontevedra ruling (Spain) ⊛ Case 09-1684-A (Belgium) ⊛ Avi Re'uveni v. Mapa inc. (Israel) ⊛ Gerlach v die-rechte.info (Germany)
- 30. ( )GPL v3patent license grant ⊛ “Each contributor grants you a non- exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version.”
- 31. ( )Interoperability Alexandre Dulaunoyhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/adulau/3011878917/
- 32. ( )Distribution chain Author/ Owner Licensee / Derivative Licensee / User Licensee / Distributor Derivative User User Distributor DerivativeUser
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- 34. ( )Incompatibility issues ⊛ GPLmay not be compatible with your licensing strategy. ⊛ Case Scenario 1: Using GPL’d software internally and to produce commercial applets does not require GPL redistribution. ⊛ Case Scenario 2: Using GPL’d code, changing it as part of a proprietary package requires that the software should be released under GPL.
- 35. ( )Alpha! Gamma! Beta! GPL Third party rights ⊛Alpha creates work, licenses with OA licence to Beta. Beta licenses work to Gamma, which modifies it and sells it commercially. ⊛ Can Alpha sue Gamma? ⊛ Does Alpha have third party rights?
- 36. ( )Alpha! Gamma! Beta! Infringeme Copyright infringement ⊛ Samecase as before ⊛ Can Alpha sue Gamma for copyright infringement? ⊛ Seemingly yes if copying is substantial. ⊛ Tests for originality apply. ⊛ Some OS projects ask creators to assign copyright.
- 37. ( )Contributor agreements ⊛ Standardizedcontributory agreements allow developers who contribute to a FOSS project to submit their contributions and either assign copyright, or grant an exclusive license. ⊛ Contributor agreements provide confidence that the guardian of a project’s output has the necessary rights over all contributions to allow for distribution of the product.
- 38. ( )Signature formalities ⊛ Doescopyright law allow assignment (transfer) of rights? ⊛ Does copyright law allow exclusive licenses? ⊛ If yes to both questions, are there any formal requirements? (writing, signature) ⊛ If yes, can those requirements be met by electronic means?
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- 40. ( )Thank you andres@metaverseconsulting.com @technollamaon Twitter CC Attribution-ShareAlike