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Many in the open source community have expressed concern about the activities of Patrick McHardy in enforcing the GNU General Public License (GPL) against Linux distributors. Below are answers to common questions, based on public information related to his activities, and some of the legal principles that underlie open source compliance enforcement. Who is Patrick …
Continue reading “Patrick McHardy and copyright profiteering”
“The Compliance Industrial Complex” is a term that evokes dystopian imagery of organizations engaging in elaborate and highly expensive processes to comply with open source license terms. As life often imitates art, many organizations engage in this practice, sadly robbing them of the many benefits of the open source model. This article presents an economically …
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Recently, Apache re-classified code under Facebook’s BSD+ Patents license to “Category X,” effectively banning it from future contributions to Apache Foundation projects. The move has re-ignited controversy over the patent grant, but like many events in the open source community, the controversy is more partisan than practical. In fact, it’s unlikely the move will affect …
Continue reading “Don’t over-React to the Facebook patents license”
In July 2017, the Apache Software Foundation effectively banned the license combination Facebook has been applying to all the projects it has been releasing as open source. It is using the 3-clause BSD license (BSD-3), a widely used Open Source Initiative (OSI)-approved non-reciprocal license, combined with a broad, non-reciprocal patent grant, but with equally broad …
Continue reading “5 reasons Facebook’s React license was a mistake”
If you’re a software developer today, you know how to use open source software, but do you know how and why open source licensing started? A little background will help you understand how and why the licenses work the way they do. Origins of open source licensing Technologists today, having grown up in the age …
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Open source software can be a double-edged sword for startups. It can be a startup’s lifeblood, because it helps you innovate rapidly without starting from scratch. But, as they say, open source software is free like a puppy is free: The true cost of open source software is obeying open source licenses. Misuse of open …
Continue reading “9 open source license management rules for startups”
Estonia has long been the digital envy of many European Union member states. An effective and open policy approach to digital government has yielded extraordinary results—from 90%+ uptake of electronic identification (E-ID) solutions to an open source e-government platform (X-Road) to meet the ever-growing expectations of IT-savvy citizens as well as other countries wanting to …
Continue reading “Europe pledges support for open source government solutions”
The GPL family of licenses is unique among open source licenses in how past, current, and future versions of the license may apply to the software program. By not fully understanding this unique license feature, open source software developers may inadvertently create ambiguity. The GPL licenses clarify how license versions are to be applied to …
Do you use “open source software” or “free software”? Although there are different rules for free software licenses (four freedoms) and open source licenses (Open Source Definition), what is not apparent from those two sets of rules is: Both terms refer to essentially the same set of licenses and software, and Each term implies different …
Continue reading “What’s the difference between open source software and free software?”
In 2017, Opensource.com authors addressed the changing legal landscape in several intellectual property areas, including trademarks, open source licensing, and compliance. And copyright trolling continues to be of concern to many, so it’s no surprise that our most-read article answered some questions about Patrick McHardy and copyright profiteering. Other widely read articles focused on nuts-and-bolts …
Continue reading “The interesting and complex legal issues of 2017”
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