Applied Copyleft (03 10 2008)

Applied Copyleft Advokat Martin von Haller Groenbaek Partner, Bender von Haller Dragsted Open Source Days, Copenhagen, 3 October 2008 lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 1

Questions Copyleft 1.0.1 Escapes What is a Enforcement derivative work? Damages Combinations Licenses Distribution lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 2

Personalia IT-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- Hostmaster 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” lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 3

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 am legal counsel to Open Source Days They pay me with a sponsorship I love open source! lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 4

The ideology You get the four freedoms You shall preserve these freedoms So when you redistribute, copyleft secures that the next persons gets the same freedoms lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 5

FLOSS - some basics Copyright based Not public domain Licenses vs. contracts Free software vs. open source software Dual licensing Copyleft, “Viral” or Hereditary lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 6

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) lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 7

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 lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 8

Combination Combination of code Semantics of the into a whole communication NB: All combinations Output not covered are permitted and “private” combinations (Exc: GPL program have no restrictions copies text into output) Mechanism of Output of language communication interpreter exec, pipes, rpc, (Exc: “bindings” function calls within interpreter to a shared address program) space, etc. lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 9

Combination cont. CMS Templates fork and exec to invoke plug-ins Exc: Javascript calls System library exception Microsoft Visual C++ (or Visual Basic) DLLs Aggregate work is not combined work Plug-ins under a GPL program Linking exception dynamically linked LGPL allows linking to plug-ins closed applications Java archive ﬁles lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 10

Distribution GPL v2: Distribution Contractors on/off- site GPL v3: Propagation and Conveyance Outsourcing In soft- and Mergers and hardware Acquisitions ASP loophole og Let recipient network exception download the GPL’ed code Affero Public License lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 11

Escapes Make deal with NDA: Developer can licensor agree not to release changes at Replace code all Work around NDA: Developer can agree only to GPL v3, sec. 8 release changes to customer Termination notice lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 12

Enforcement The GPL is enforceable! Germany 2004: Netﬁlter/Iptables; 2006: D-Link US 2007: BusyBox; 2008: Jacobsen vs. Katzer SCO Copyright holder Licensee GPL-VIOLATIONS.ORG lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 13

Damages Compensation under copyright No penal damages or stipulated damages Economic loss suffered by licensor Rule of thumb: 2 x license fee plus fee for continued use Injunction Legal fees lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 14

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 lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 15

Thanks for the attention! mhg@bvhd.dk martin@groenbaek.net http://www.bvhd.dk http://suse.groenbaek.net/openlife lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 16

http://opensourcedays.org	6
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Applied Copyleft (03 10 2008)

by Martin von Haller Groenbaek

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