This document provides an overview of open source software and licensing. It defines intellectual property and discusses the importance of IP protection. A history of open source licensing is presented, covering key licenses like the GPL, BSD, MIT, Apache, and Mozilla licenses. The major license types are compared in terms of their permissiveness, restrictions on downstream use and distribution, and other constraints. Examples of open source software and licensing strategies are discussed. In conclusion, resources for choosing an appropriate license are presented.

1. OPEN SOURCE
SOFTWARE &
LICENSING
A CONVERSATION ON
1

2. JASON CAROLAN - JCAROLAN@ME.COM
ABOUT ME
• 20+ years in technology
• Luther College
• Startups, Health systems, software
/ hardware cos.
• Current CTO ViaWest @ Denver -
cloud services
• Relevant experience
• DE at SUN, IP Committee Lead
for Sun field org.
• Open source contributor - it’s
been a while!
And this is not legal advice!

3. WHAT WE’RE COVERING!
AGENDA
• Definitions - F/OSS, Intellectual Property
• License history
• License types
• Comparisons and constraints
• Examples
• Q&A

4. ITS ALL PROPERTY
STARTING AT THE TOP
• It applies to art, photos, written work, and code
• People and companies have different goals when they release the
property -
• Monetary
• Exposure / Viral Marketing
• Giving Back
• Collaboration & Scale

5. DEFINITIONS
WHAT IS IP?
“Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary
and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in
commerce.”
What is Intellectual Property?, World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO), http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/
The basis of IP protection is “Copyright” - Expression of Idea, vs the Idea
itself — has evolved from worldwide laws over the last 500 years
- Patents protect property rights over a set number of years.
- Open source licensing — it pertains to open source — and there’s over
60+ licensing formats
source - wikipedia

6. WHY PROPERTY PROTECTION IS IMPORTANT
PROTECTION / RISK REDUCTION
• Ensure people can’t steal it
• e.g. Patents, Copyright (not always evil!)
• Ensure folks get “paid” for their work ($$s, attribution, etc)
• Ensure “open” stays open aka “copyleft”
• A license is a contract to permit
• Use
• Modify
• Distribute
• Control derivative work (distribute modifications)
• Specify warranty rights / or in most cases no warranty is implied.

7. AND WHAT ISN’T IT?
WHAT IS F/OSS?
• Free doesn’t mean open source - grants a license to use
• Open source may grant a free license - and it usually does
• Open source intent is a “copyleft” paradigm, which is enforced by
copyright law - generally recognized internationally
• Once property / code /etc is “open sourced” it cannot be closed
sourced - or revoked — but future releases MAY have different
license schemes
• Typically, open source licenses restrict what type of license can be
used down stream - for derivative work

8. WE CAN THANK RICHARD STALLMAN & ERIC RAYMOND
OSS/LICENSE HISTORY
photo source-wikipedia

10. OPEN SOURCE SUCCESS!
WHERE WE ARE TODAY
source - black duck softwaresource - techcrunch
97% of companies use
Open Source Software!
-black duck - 2016

11. BUT THEY LIKE TO HIDE THEMSELVES IN COMPLEXITY
LICENSES ARE STRAIGHT-FORWARD?
• Restrictions / Permissiveness &
Compatibility
• can I include in other
software?
• how am I able to distribute?
• downstream distribution rights
• vs public domain
http://blog.microbiologynetwork.com/497/alphabet-soup-abbreviations-and-acronyms-of-
interest/
source - wikipedia

12. LICENSES!
TODAY’S MOST COMMON -
source - black duck - 2015 survey

13. GNU PUBLIC LICENSE / MANIFESTO
GPL 2/3
• A short history - it all started with Emacs (1983) — GNU projects did
not have a single license, so users could take the source and do what
they wanted — aka sell it, without his permission
• Stallman sought to correct this hence GPL or GNU Public License in
1988
• GPL 2 and 3 are the primary, Lesser = L
• Lesser GPL removes restrictions based on proprietary and commercial
use, allowing it to be distributed as a library
• Prefer copyright to be assigned to FSF (Free Software Foundation),
and tries to reduce forks by ensuring back-wards compatibility.

14. GPL 2/3
• GPL2
• provides the right to use, modify, derivative works
• requires distribution with the GPL license, in-tact
• ability to “copyleft” work to ensure open / free distribution
• is hard to incorporate into other licenses (see Library/Lesser)
• GPL3 - the current version
• is more compatible with other licenses
• allows patents to be included in the license
• more legal structure to handle violations, DRM
SOFTWARE THAT USES GPL…
-GNU STUFF
- ARDUINO
- FUSE
- GRAPHITE
- GNOME

15. BERKELEY SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION
BSD 2 / 3
• Major difference to GPL - does not require downstream distribution to
utilize the same license format - “copyleft” provisions
• Great for those wanting the right to potentially commercialize
• BSD 2 - Clause : Simplified BSD license / FreeBSD license
• Source and binary distributions refer to Copyright notice
• BSD 3 - Clause : New BSD
• 2+ Limitations- Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the
names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote
products derived from this software without specific prior written
permission.
SOFTWARE THAT USES BSD…
- - SCALA
- - CHERRYPY
- -FREEBSD
- -GO (!)

16. MASS. INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY LICENSE
MIT
• Also known as the X11 license, allows open use in other licenses,
as long as MIT notice is in-tact, including proprietary
• Is easy to incorporate into other licenses -e.g. can be
incorporated into GPL
• Most common for F/OSS - Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Backbone.js,
Jquery, etc.

17. APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION
APACHE 2.0
• Requires license and copyright in-tact, but allows for patent
applicability, private use only, sub-licensing, permissive
modifications…
• Modifications can use any compatible license downstream
• Non-modified code must retain Apache 2.0 license

18. AKA MOZILLA COMMERCIAL LICENSE
MOZILLA PUBLIC LICENSE / MPL
• Limits downstream licensing - requires contributions to be made
only under MPL
• Supports patent rights and litigation structure
• Works best for commercial endeavors, and is “verbose”
• Carve outs for US Government and International jurisdictions

19. BROAD APPLICABILITY TO MEDIA
CREATIVE COMMONS (CC) / SHAREALIKE
• Allows content owners / authors to provide open use, attribution
of their ownership, and potential to restrict downstream use -
“sharealike”
• Also able to clearly distinguish non-commercial use
source - wikipedia

20. RISKS AND CONCERNS
• Overall Infringement and Enforcement
• Copyright and Notice requirements
• Ambiguous and still new enough for random interpretation
• May be revocable
• Forking and downstream licensing formats / vs intent
• License management itself and overall process
• …

21. EXAMPLES - MOSAIC / NETSCAPE / MOZILLA
• Mosaic - one of the first WWW browsers - NCSA / IL
• Authors created Mosaic Communications, then Netscape, but
distributed Mosaic/Communicator for free, for non-commercial
use as “proprietary software”
• First example of truly viral software
• Netscape re-wrote, and distributed Netscape Communicator
• Mosaic was never open source, and still has a proprietary license
from NCSA.

22. NETFLIX OSS
• Project started in 2015
• Focused on internal cross-functional code,
much of it around AWS
• Simple pragmatic rules on what to keep
proprietary and what to OSS - video / vs /
compute
• e.g. Chaos Monkey, ICE
• Apache License Model
• OSS to reduce complexity internally and to
share with broader community
• “costs to much to worry about charging $$”
NOTE - RED HAT JUST BECAME THE FIRST $2BN
“OPEN SOURCE” COMPANY - 2016

23. PICKING THE RIGHT LICENSE
APACHE
MIT/BSD
GPL
PERMISSIVE
RESTRICTED - COPYLEFT MOZILLA RESTRICTED - COPYRIGHT

24. RESOURCES
• Open Source Definition - OSD
• https://opensource.org/osd
• License Help!
• https://choosealicense.com/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_and_open-source_software_licenses
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_software_licence

25. PICK A LICENSE!
SUMMARY
• Major constraints —
• Intent to restrict downstream value / openness
• Trade secret or public domain — probably something between
• where do you want this project to be 2-5 years down the road?
• Evolving and changing but the basics are the same, and mostly
follow the open source definitions
• Pick a simple one and move on, you can re-write it :)

26. Q&A
THANK YOU!
jcarolan@me.com