Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law

Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law

by Lawrence Rosen
Released July 2004
Publisher(s): Pearson
ISBN: 0131487876

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Book description

“I have studied Rosen’s book in detail and am impressed with its scope and content. I strongly recommend it to anybody interested in the current controversies surrounding open source licensing.”
—John Terpstra, Samba.org; cofounder, Samba-Team

“Linux and open source software have forever altered the computing landscape. The important conversations no longer revolve around the technology but rather the business and legal issues. Rosen’s book is must reading for anyone using or providing open source solutions.”
—Stuart Open Source Development Labs

A Complete Guide to the Law of Open Source for Developers, Managers, and Lawyers

Now that open source software is blossoming around the world, it is crucial to understand how open source licenses work—and their solid legal foundations. Open Source Initiative general counsel Lawrence Rosen presents a plain-English guide to open source law for developers, managers, users, and lawyers. Rosen clearly explains the intellectual property laws that support open source licensing, carefully reviews today’s leading licenses, and helps you make the best choices for your project or organization. Coverage includes:

  • Explanation of why the SCO litigation and other attacks won’t derail open source

  • Dispelling the myths of open source licensing

  • Intellectual property law for nonlawyers: ownership and licensing of copyrights, patents, and trademarks

  • “Academic licenses”: BSD, MIT, Apache, and beyond

  • The “reciprocal bargain” at the heart of the GPL

  • Alternative licenses: Mozilla, CPL, OSL and AFL

  • Benefits of open source, and the obligations and risks facing businesses that deploy open source software

  • Choosing the right license: considering business models, product architecture, IP ownership,

  • license compatibility issues, relicensing, and more

  • Enforcing the terms and conditions of open source licenses

  • Shared source, eventual source, and other alternative models to open source

  • Protecting yourself against lawsuits

    •

    Table of contents

    1. Copyright
    2. Acknowledgments
    3. Foreword
    4. Preamble
    5. Freedom and Open Source
      1. The Language of Freedom
      2. Defining Open Source
      3. Open Source Principles
    6. Intellectual Property
      1. Dominion Over Property
      2. Right Brain and Left Brain
      3. Acquiring Copyrights and Patents
      4. Original Works of Authorship
      5. Works Made for Hire
      6. Exclusive Rights of Copyright and Patent Owners
      7. Copies
      8. Exceptions to the Exclusive Right to Make Copies
      9. Collective and Derivative Works
      10. The Chain of Title for Copyright
      11. The Chain of Title for Patents
      12. Joint Works
      13. Assigning Ownership
      14. Duration of Copyright and Patent
      15. Trademarks
      16. Exceptions to Intellectual Property Protection
    7. Distribution of Software
      1. Contributors and Distributors
      2. Distribution
      3. Open Source Collaboration
      4. Contributor Agreements
      5. What about Users?
    8. Taxonomy of Licenses
      1. What Is a License?
      2. Bare Licenses
      3. Licenses as Contracts
      4. Patent Licenses
      5. Template Licenses
      6. Types of Open Source Licenses
    9. Academic Licenses
      1. The BSD Gift of Freedom
      2. BSD License as Template
      3. The BSD License Grant
      4. Source and Binary Forms of Code
      5. Conditions under the BSD
      6. Warranty and Liability Disclaimer
      7. The MIT License
      8. The Right to Sublicense
      9. The Warranty of Noninfringement
      10. The Apache License
      11. Protecting Trademarks
      12. The Apache Contributor License Agreement
      13. The Artistic License
      14. License Preambles
      15. When Amateurs Write Licenses
      16. Big Picture of Academic Licenses
      17. Apache License Version 2.0
    10. Reciprocity and the GPL
      1. The GPL Bargain
      2. Copyleft and Reciprocity
      3. Policy Objectives
      4. The Preamble to the GPL
      5. GPL as Template
      6. The GPL Applies to Programs
      7. Linking to GPL Software
      8. Copyright Law and Linking
      9. The LGPL Alternative
      10. GPL Grant of License
      11. Access to Source Code
      12. “At No Charge”
      13. Other Obligations in the GPL
      14. The GPL and Patents
      15. Accepting the GPL
    11. The Mozilla Public License (MPL)
      1. The Mozilla Story
      2. The MPL Reciprocity Bargain
      3. Contributors and Modifications
      4. The MPL and Patents
      5. Defending Against Patents
      6. Other Important MPL License Provisions
      7. Other Corporate Licenses
    12. The Common Public License (CPL)
      1. CPL as a Template
      2. A Digression about Well-Written Licenses
      3. Grant of Copyright and Patent Licenses
      4. Reciprocity under the CPL
      5. Exception to Reciprocity
      6. Patent Defense
      7. Defend and Indemnify
      8. Ownership of the CPL License
    13. The OSL and the AFL
      1. Academic or Reciprocal?
      2. Initial Paragraph of OSL/AFL
      3. 1. Grant of Copyright License
      4. 2. Grant of Patent License
      5. 3. Grant of Source Code License
      6. 4. Exclusions from License Grant
      7. 5. External Deployment
      8. 6. Attribution Rights
      9. 7. Warranty of Provenance and Disclaimer of Warranty
      10. 8. Limitation of Liability
      11. 9. Acceptance and Termination
      12. 10. Termination for Patent Action
      13. 11. Jurisdiction, Venue, and Governing Law
      14. 12. Attorneys' Fees
      15. 13. Miscellaneous
      16. 14. Definition of “You” in This License
      17. 15. Right to Use
      18. Copyright and Licensing Notice
    14. Choosing an Open Source License
      1. How Licenses Are Chosen
      2. The Free-Rider Problem
      3. Making Money from Open Source
      4. In-Licensing
      5. Out-Licensing
      6. Contributions to Projects
      7. License Compatibility for Collective Works
      8. License Compatibility for Derivative Works
      9. Relicensing
    15. Shared Source, Eventual Source, and Other Licensing Models
      1. Alternatives to Open Source
      2. Shared Source
      3. Public Source
      4. Dual and Multiple Licensing
      5. Eventual Source and Scheduled Licensing
      6. Combining Licensing Models
    16. Open Source Litigation
      1. Owning a Cause of Action
      2. Damages
      3. Injunctions
      4. Standing to Sue
      5. Burden of Proof
      6. Enforcing the Terms of a Contract
      7. Disputes over Ownership of Intellectual Property
      8. Disputes over Derivative Works
      9. Patent Infringement Litigation
      10. SCO vs. Open Source
    17. Open Standards
      1. Defining Open Standards
      2. Open Specifications
      3. Enforcing the Standard by Copyright Restrictions
      4. Licensing the Test Suite: The Open Group License
      5. Discouraging Forks: Sun's SISSL
      6. Patents on Open Standards
      7. Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory
      8. Royalty Free
      9. The W3C Patent License
      10. Justifying Open Standards and Open Source
    18. The Open Source Paradigm
    19. Appendices
      1. BSD License
      2. MIT License
      3. Apache License
      4. The Apache Contributor License Agreement
      5. Artistic License
      6. General Public License (GPL)
      7. Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
      8. Mozilla Public License (MPL)
      9. Common Public License (CPL)
      10. Open Software License (OSL) and Academic Free License (AFL)
      11. Licensed under the Open Software License version 2.0
    20. About the Author
    21. Index

    Product information

    • Title: Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law
    • Author(s): Lawrence Rosen
    • Release date: July 2004
    • Publisher(s): Pearson
    • ISBN: 0131487876