The document discusses how to properly license open source software to avoid legal issues. It recommends: 1) picking the right license for your project; 2) including attribution, license notices, and the full text of the license in your source code; and 3) using a contributor license agreement to assign copyrights of contributions to the project owner. Failure to follow proper licensing can result in losing control of your code, patents, trade secrets or even your company to legal issues. The presentation provides tips and examples of how to properly implement licensing.

1. Silicon Valley Code Camp
October 12, 2014
Don’t Screw Up
Your Licensing
Ansel Halliburton"
ansel@halliburtonlegal.com
@anseljh
https://halliburtonlegal.com/

2. Who am I?
2
Lawyer"
• Starting startups
• Keeping startups out of hot water
• Defending patent troll cases
• Suing bad guys
!
Hacker"
• Since age 10
• Lex Machina
• Mechanical Turk module for Boto
(AWS for Python)
• Raspberry Pi & Arduino robot
Writer"
• TechCrunch contributor
• legal tech
• startup law
• smartphone patent wars
• computer crime
• Paper on Somali maritime piracy
Daddy"
!
!
!
!
!
!

3. Disclaimers!
1 2
IANAL
IAAL
but
IANYL
3
This is general
information for
educational purposes.
It might not be right
for you! Talk to a
lawyer for advice
about your own
specific situation.

4. What is open source?
• The Open Source Definition by the Open
Source Initiative: 10 paragraphs
• The Free Software Definition by the
Free Software Foundation: 4 pages
4

5. What is open source?
5
Open source
Public domain
Free software
FOSS
FLOSS
GPL
BSD
???

6. What is open source?
“Open source software is software that can
be freely used, changed, and shared (in
modified or unmodified form) by anyone.”
• Free of charge
• Published source code
• Varying restrictions on commercial use
6

7. Intellectual Property
Kind Protects Laws
7
Patent
Technological
inventions
Federal
Copyright Expression Federal
Trademark Signals of source Federal and State
Trade Secrets
Information that is
valuable because
it is secret
State
Open Source Proprietary

8. What is a license?
1. Contract
2. Allows use of IP (copyrighted source code)
3. Imposes conditions
8

9. License dimensions
Notice
Must include notice and a copy of the license with code
Source code disclosure
Must include a copy of your source code
Sublicensing
Can you grant downstream licenses?
Copyleft
You code must be under the same license
Patent license
Some give express patent license (GPLv2 is silent!)
9

10. Major open source licenses
Notice Source Code Sublicense
GPL Y Y N
BSD Y N Y
MIT Y N Y
Apache Y N Y
ChooseALicense.com by GitHub

11. MIT License
11

12. GPLv3
12 pages long!
12

13. GPLv3 § 5
13

14. GPLv3 § 8
14

15. Consequences of
screwing up licensing
• Lose control of your…
• code
• patents
• trade secrets
• company
15

16. How to screw up
• Pick a bad license
( )
• Pick the wrong license for your project
• Fail to attribute
• Fail to give source code
• Forget to get contributor assignments
16

17. Notable screw ups
• BusyBox cases (GPL violations by embedded
developers)
• Linksys (GPL violation in routers)
Free Software Foundation, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc.
• Settlement: $ donations to FSF + open source compliance director
• Versata (GPL violation in enterprise software)
XimpleWare Corp. v. Versata Software, Inc.
17

18. How not to screw up
1. Pick the right license"
2. Give attribution
3. Give notice in source code
4. Include license
5. Contributor license agreement
18

19. ChooseALicense.com by GitHub

20. How not to screw up
1. Pick the right license
2. Give attribution"
3. Give notice in source code
4. Include license
5. Contributor license agreement
20

21. How NOT to screw up:
attribution
21

22. How not to screw up
1. Pick the right license
2. Give attribution
3. Give notice in source code"
4. Include license
5. Contributor license agreement
22

23. License header (GPLv2)
one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.
Copyright (C) yyyy name of author
!
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
!
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
!
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
USA.
23

24. License header (GPLv2)
#!/usr/bin/env python
!
# dont_screw_up.py - Demo program for Don't Screw Up Your License talk
# Copyright (C) 2014 Ansel Halliburton
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
# as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
# of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
# along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
# Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
!
LICENSE_INTERACTIVE = """dont_screw_up.py, Copyright (C) 2014 Ansel Halliburton
dont_screw_up.py comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details
type `show w'. This is free software, and you are welcome
to redistribute it under certain conditions; type `show c'
for details."""
!
if __name__ == '__main__':
24
print(LICENSE_INTERACTIVE)
print("Now we'll do something useful.")
print("Just kidding!")

25. How not to screw up
1. Pick the right license
2. Give attribution
3. Give notice in source code
4. Include license"
5. Contributor license agreement
25

26. 26

27. 27

28. How not to screw up
1. Pick the right license
2. Give attribution
3. Give notice in source code
4. Include license
5. Contributor license agreement
28

29. Contributor License
Agreements (CLA)
• Default copyright rule: every author owns his own
contributions
• 100 contributors —> 100 separate copyrights
• CLA assigns contributors’ copyrights to the project
(or project leader)
29

30. How to do CLAs
• Make sure all committers sign a CLA!
• The easy way:
• get a CLA from Project Harmony.
http://www.harmonyagreements.org
• use CLAHub to integrate your CLA
with a GitHub repo
https://www.clahub.com/
30

31. Get a CLA
31

32. Get a CLA
…
32

33. Using CLAHub
33

34. Authorize CLAHub
34

35. Paste & markup CLA with Markdown
35

36. What contributors see
36

37. Contributors sign
37

38. Owner gets a nice CSV report
38

39. Add it to your repository
39

40. Bigtime compliance
https://www.blackducksoftware.com/audits/open-source-audits
https://www.blackducksoftware.com/products/black-duck-suite/protex/black-duck-code-label
40

41. Miscellaneous
• Copyright exists by default
• Copyright registration grants more remedies
• Copyright lasts as long as Mickey Mouse needs it
• Fair use is probably not what you think it is
(and doesn’t exist outside the US)
41

42. How not to screw up
1. Pick the right license
2. Give attribution
3. Give notice in source code
4. Include license
5. Contributor license agreement
42

43. Q & A
43

44. Thanks!
Ansel Halliburton"
ansel@halliburtonlegal.com
@anseljh
https://halliburtonlegal.com
44