Open source legal intro (01-06-2009)
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The document is a legal introduction to open source software presented by Martin von Haller Grønbæk, addressing essential topics such as copyright, trademarks, patents, and licensing for open source software. It outlines key concepts of free software ideology, various types of open source licenses, and the implications of copyleft principles. The presentation also covers risks, contributions, and legal agreements associated with open source contributions, specifically in the context of the Eclipse Public License.
![Two Small Words...
– “I started designing internet applications in [year], when I
joined [Technology Company]…. Very soon, when working on
customer projects, I introduced the concept of [concept]….
I began developing a small generic framework …. I improved
the framework as I moved on, from customer to customer. “
“Until it was time to open source it! … As I spread the word
about this framework within [Technology Company], several
… [other employees]… began using it and making
modifications… Another good reason [to open source it] was
that I wanted to have feedback from the open source
community and wanted to get help to improveit. Also, it was
good to be able to provide to our customers a framework that
would continue to evolve and be maintained even after we
left the project.” [Emphasis added. Paraphrased from:http://
jakarta.apache.org/cactus/participating/contributors.html]
49
tirsdag den 1. juni 2010](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/opensourcelegalintro01-06-2009-100601073714-phpapp02/85/Open-source-legal-intro-01-06-2009-49-320.jpg)
Open source legal intro (01-06-2009)
- 1. Open Source Legal Intro Advokat Martin von Haller Groenbaek Partner, Bender von Haller Dragsted Eclipse Banking Day Copenhagen June 1st 2010 2 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 2. Martin von Haller Grønbæk – Attorney-at-law, Bender von Haller Dragsted – Co-founder, Open Source Vendors Ass. (OSL) – Editorial board IFOSSLR – Co-founder, Creative Commons DK – Co-founder, Danish Internet Society Chapter 2 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 3. Martin von Haller Grønbæk – http://www.bvhd.dk – http://openlife.dk – http://www.vonhaller.dk – http://www.linkedin.com/in/vonhaller – http://www.23hq.com/mhg – http://www.slideshare.net/vonhaller – http://www.facebook.com/vonhaller – [email protected] – [email protected] – [email protected] 3 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 4. Martin von Haller Grønbæk –Legal500: “At IT boutique Bender von Haller Dragsted, Martin von Haller Grønbæk is the Danish expert on open source and emerging issues around Web 2.0 and internet law.” 4 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 5. Agenda • FLOSS key concepts • Trademarks and OSS • Copyright and OSS • Patents and OSS • OSS Licenses • Copyleft • Eclipse Public License 3 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
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- 7. Communisme tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 8. Communism ? tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 9. Cancer? tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 10. Free vs. Open tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 11. FLOSS tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 12. Free Software ideology • “All software should be free” • You get the four freedoms • You shall preserve these freedoms • So when you redistribute, copyleft secures that the next persons gets the same freedoms 12 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 13. “Free not as in free beer but as in freedom” tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 14. Open source initiative tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 15. Open Source principles • Free redistribution • Source code • Derived work • Integrity of The Author's Source Code • 5-10: Non-discrimination 15 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 16. Open Source negatives • “AS IS” • No warranties • No support • No “corporate backing” • Plenty of business opportunities • For everyone • Reality: The same applies for “closed source” software 16 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 17. No right to contribute • The project owner does not have to accept any contribution • Trademarks matters • Liability challenges • License petrification • Ownership assignement • The right to fork! 17 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 18. Comply or don’t use tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 19. Credit where credit is due! tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 20. Copyright ● The programmer or the producer owns the software ● Property rights are limited ● Copyright is limited in time ● The user is a user not an owner ● The license is an agreement not a law ● The license grants positively defined user rights. ● All residual rights belongs to the licensor ● Without copyright no licenses tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 21. Open source and Trademarks tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 22. Open source and Patents tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 23. Patents • “A set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor or his assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a disclosure of an invention” • FSF: “a patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program" • Licensor shall not restrict use by patents (downstream) • OSS licensee shall not claim patents against licensor or sublicensee (upstream and downstream) 23 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 24. Patent trolls tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 25. OSS Licenses • Academic or permissive licenses – Apache License v2 – MIT License – New BSD license 25 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 26. OSS Licenses cont. • Copyleft, reciprocal or hereditary licences – Weak copyleft •Artistic license v1 •Eclipse Public License •Mozilla Public License v.1.1 – Strong copyleft •GNU GPL v1-3 •GNU LGPL v1-3 26 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 27. Use decides types of OSS license • Are you planning to modify? • Will you only use internally? • Or are you going to distribute • Permissive licenses generally don’t pose problems • Distribution and copyleft does – How is the code structured? – Is the code modified? – Are there multiple licenses? 27 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 28. Copyleft - the basics • You don’t have to redistribute or distribute • (Exception: “written offer valid for any third party” in GPL, v. 2) • Comply or cease use, or call back distribution • Make combined program, including modifications and otherwise closed code available under GPL (or compatible licens) 28 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
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- 30. GPL is a here- ditary tirsdag den 1. juni 2010 License!
- 31. Derivative work • A work based on one or more pre- existing works • Improvement, translation, correction • Not collective work • Modifications are copyrighted themselves • Very few court cases • GPL: Combinations 31 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 32. Combination • Combination of code into a whole • NB: All combinations are permitted and “private” combinations have no restrictions • Mechanism of communication • Semantics of the communication • Output not covered • (Exc: GPL program copies text into output) • Output of language interpreter • (Exc: “bindings” interpreter to program) • Library is under GPL, program is not • Program is under GPL, module is not 32 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 33. Combination cont. • CMS Templates – Exc: Javascript calls • Microsoft Visual C++ (or Visual Basic) DLLs • Plug-ins under a GPL program – dynamically linked plug-ins – fork and exec to invoke plug-ins • System library exception • Aggregate work is not combined work • Linking exception • LGPL allows linking to closed applications – Java archive files 33 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 34. Distribution • GPL v2 and other OSS licenses: Distribution – Physical copy transferred – To a third party • GPL v3: Propagation and Conveyance • In soft- and hardware • ASP loophole og network exception • Affero Public License 34 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 35. Distribution cont. • Challenges – Contractors on/off-site – Outsourcing • Mergers and Acquisitions • Let recipient download the GPL’ed code 35 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 36. Escapes • Make deal with licensor • Replace code • Work around • GPL v3, sec. 8 – Termination notice • NDA: Developer can agree not to release changes at all • NDA: Developer can agree only to release changes to customer 36 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 37. Enforcement • The GPL is enforceable! – Germany 2004: Netfilter/Iptables; 2006: D-Link – US 2007: BusyBox; 2008: Jacobsen vs. Katzer – SCO • Copyright holder • Injunction • GPL-VIOLATIONS.ORG 37 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 38. Damages • Compensation under copyright • No penal damages or stipulated damages • Economic loss suffered by licensor • Rule of thumb: 2 x license fee • Legal fees 38 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 39. tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 40. License structure • Eclipse.org Terms of Use • Eclipse Foundation Software User Agreement • Eclipse Public License Version 1.0 ("EPL") • Other OSS license – Common Public License Version 1.0 – Apache Software License 1.1 – Apache Software License 2.0 – Metro Link Public License 1.00 • Mozilla Public License Version 1.1 40 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 41. Copyleft in EPL • “Weak” • Contributions – Changes – Additions • Contributions do not includes: – additions to the Program which: (i) are separate modules of software distributed in conjunction with the Program under their own license agreement, and (ii) are not derivative works of the Program. 41 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 42. Patents in EPL • Patent license to use Contributed source and object code • Also to use Program and Contribution combined at time of contribution • No warranties or indemnifications • Indemnification of other Contributors by Commercial distributors 42 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 43. Risk at Eclipse • Code Originates from Three Sources: – Contributions from Eclipse Committers – Contributions from Contributors – Contributions from third party sources (e.g. another open source project) 43 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 44. Committer Contributions • Legal Agreements are entered into to secure the necessary rights to have the code included in Eclipse. – Member Committer Agreement – Individual Committer Agreement • If the Individual Committer is Employed – An Employer Consent Form • Through these Agreements, the Committer agrees that the Eclipse Public License (EPL) governs the code submitted by the Committer. 44 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 45. Contributor Contributions • All content must be submitted through any of the channels existing on the Eclipse Foundation website such as, the Bugzilla bug reporting system. • This material is licensed to others under the terms of the Eclipse Foundation Terms of Use. • The Eclipse Foundation Terms of Use define the license terms that apply to any intellectual property submitted to the Eclipse Foundation website. • Modifications to EPL code are governed by the EPL • Modifications to code governed by another license aregoverned by that other license and the EPL. 45 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 46. Contributor Contributions continued… • For all other contributions… – “you grant (or warrant that the owner of such rights has expressly granted) the Eclipse Foundation, the Members and the users of this Web-site a worldwide, unrestricted, royalty free, fully paid up, irrevocable, perpetual, nonexclusive license to use, make, reproduce, prepare derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, sell, distribute, sublicense or otherwise transfer such Materials, and/ or derivative works thereof, and authorize third parties to do any, some or all of the foregoing including, but not limited to, sublicensing others to do any some or all of the foregoingindefinitely.” 46 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 47. Third Party Contributions • Third party contributions such as code originating from another open source project (e.g. www.apache.org) are licensed under the licenseterms that apply to that project. • Eclipse completes due diligence on each of these packages. 47 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 48. License Compatibility • When more than one “copyleft” open source product is used in the same application, the applicable licenses may contradict one another. • One license may require that the application as a whole be licensed under its terms; while another may require that it be licensed under its terms. • As a result, it may not be possible to comply with both licenses at the same time. The licenses are “incompatible.” 48 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 49. Two Small Words... – “I started designing internet applications in [year], when I joined [Technology Company]…. Very soon, when working on customer projects, I introduced the concept of [concept]…. I began developing a small generic framework …. I improved the framework as I moved on, from customer to customer. “ “Until it was time to open source it! … As I spread the word about this framework within [Technology Company], several … [other employees]… began using it and making modifications… Another good reason [to open source it] was that I wanted to have feedback from the open source community and wanted to get help to improveit. Also, it was good to be able to provide to our customers a framework that would continue to evolve and be maintained even after we left the project.” [Emphasis added. Paraphrased from:http:// jakarta.apache.org/cactus/participating/contributors.html] 49 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 50. Questions • Does the Technology Company have an ownership interest in the software? • Do Technology Company’s customers have an ownership interest in the software? • Are there other authors involved and did they consent to distribute the code under the license identified? 50 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 51. Active management • Initial open source contribution policy • Ownership assignment • Repeated audited • But don’t overdo it! 51 tirsdag den 1. juni 2010
- 52. Thanks for listening! Also available at http://www.slideshare.net/vonhaller/ tirsdag den 1. juni 2010