License Myths And Applied Copyleft (24 03 2009)

License myth or Applied Copyleft

Advokat Martin von Haller GroenbaekPartner, Bender von Haller Dragsted

FOSS, Aalborg, 24 March 2009

tirsdag den 24. marts 2009

QuestionsCopyleft 1.0.1

What is a derived work?

Combinations

Distribution

Escapes

Enforcement

Damages

Licenses


PersonaliaIT-Lawyer, partner at Bender von Haller Dragsted

Co-founder of Forening for Dansk Internet Handel (FDIH), Open Source Leverandør Foreningen (OSL), Danish Chapter of Internet Society (ISOC DK), DK-Hostsmaster A/S and the like

Board member of several SME IT companies

Legal counsel to OSS developers and public institutions (even works with Microsoft!)

I am not a hacker, computer scientist BUT

“in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed is king”


Full Disclosure

I make good money from advising on open source law

I want to promote my open source brand

I want you to pay money to me for legal services

I love open source!


The ideology

You get the four freedoms

You shall preserve these freedoms

So when you (re)distribute, copyleft secures that the next persons gets the same freedoms


FLOSS - some basics

Copyright based

Not public domain

Licenses vs. contracts

Free software vs. open source software

Dual licensing

Copyleft, “Viral” or Hereditary


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)


Derivative workA 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


CombinationCombination of code into a whole

NB: All combinations are permitted and “private” combinations have no restrictions

Mechanism of communication

exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.

Semantics of the communication

Output not covered

(Exc: GPL program copies text into output)

Output of language interpreter

(Exc: “bindings” interpreter to program)


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


DistributionGPL v2: Distribution

GPL v3: Propagation and Conveyance

In soft- and hardware

ASP loophole og network exception

Affero Public License

Contractors on/off-site

Outsourcing

Mergers and Acquisitions

Let recipient download the GPL’ed code


EscapesMake 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


EnforcementThe GPL is enforceable!

Germany 2004: Netfilter/Iptables; 2006: D-Link

US 2007: BusyBox; 2008: Jacobsen vs. Katzer

SCO

Copyright holder

Licensee

GPL-VIOLATIONS.ORG


Damages

Compensation under copyright

No penal damages or stipulated damages

Economic loss suffered by licensor

Rule of thumb: 2 x license fee

Injunction

Legal fees


Licenses

“Version 2 of the GPL or any later version”

User: GPL v. 3 more permissive or restrictive

Developer: Free to choose for future versions of program

GPL compatibility

FLOSS Exception


Thanks for the attention!

[email protected]@groenbaek.nethttp://www.bvhd.dk

http://suse.groenbaek.net/openlife


mailto:[email protected]




http://www.bvhd.dk

http://www.bvhd.dk

License Myths And Applied Copyleft (24 03 2009)

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Transcript of License Myths And Applied Copyleft (24 03 2009)