documento su Open Source

1. OPEN SOURCE
101
Hope O’Keeffe
Emmet Devine
Library of Congress
Office of the General Counsel
loke@loc.gov
This presentation text is in the public domain.

2. NDIIPP/Open Source Discussion
 NDIIPP and Open Source
 Copyright and Licenses
 Open Source Licenses
 License Considerations
 Best Practices

3. NDIIPP/Open Source Discussion
 NDIIPP and Open Source
 Copyright and Licenses
 Open Source Licenses
 License Considerations
 Best Practices

4. NDIIPP and Open Source
 NDIIPP
– A cooperative, collaborative community
– Building a toolbox of software
 Open Source
– Software programs
– Built by collaborative communities

5. What Open Source is
 A software program or set of software
technologies
 Made widely available
 In source code form
 For use, modification, and redistribution
 Under a license agreement with few
restrictions

6. What Open Source isn't
 Proprietary software
– “Shareware”
– “Freeware”
 Public domain software
– Lacks copyright protection because:
• It is older than a certain age
• It was created by a United States
government employee
• The owner dedicated the work into the
public domain
– No restrictions on use or derivatives

7. Benefits of Open Source
 For the developers
– Access to source code – jumpstarts projects and innovation
– Community of developers – testing, patching, extending
– Lowered initial cost of adoption for potential market
 For the users
– Access to source code – allows local customization
• Not locked into vendor or product lifecycle
– Community of developers – steady, small improvements
– Lowered initial cost of adoption for potential product
 Users become involved as developers

8. NDIIPP/Open Source Discussion
 NDIIPP and Open Source
 Copyright and Licenses
 Open Source Licenses
 License Considerations
 Best Practices

9. Copyright and Licenses
 Copyright is legal protection for original works of
authorship
 Software created after 1977 is automatically protected by
copyright
– If original, minimally creative and fixed in a tangible
form
 Copyright law grants exclusive rights in the software to the
owner of the copyright
– Owner is originally the creator (or their employer)
– But copyright can be transferred by contract
 The open source software license is a grant of rights to
users who would not otherwise have the right to use the
software

10. “Rights” included in Copyright
 Copyright owners have the exclusive
rights “to do and to authorize”:
– Reproduce the work
– Create derivative works (which recast,
transform, or adapt the work)
– Distribute copies of the work
– Perform the work publicly
– Display the work publicly

11. Example of Copyright Derivatives
 If you love Romeo and Juliet, but hate the ending:
• It’s in the public domain – write new last act, make copies
of the entire work and distribute
• You have a derivative work and have the copyright on
the last act.
 If you love Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,
but hate the ending:
• It’s protected by copyright – can’t rewrite last chapter,
make and distribute copies of the entire work without
permission of the copyright holder
• You have a lawsuit - but you hold the copyright in any
original, minimally creative expression in the new last
chapter

12. “Rights” not included in Copyright
 Copyright owners do not have any rights to
any “idea, procedure, process, system, method
of operation, concept, principle, or discovery”
in the work
– Patents protect these types of “ideas”
 Copyright protects the expression, not the
idea.

13. Summary of Copyright Protection
 Copyright protection is automatic
 Copyright protects expressions of an idea, not
the idea itself
 To create a derivative work, permissions must
be obtained from the owner

14. Role of Licenses
 Licenses specify the terms under which the
copyrighted work can be “used”
 When you use open source software, you
assent to its license agreement. When you
license your work, you give others the right to
use it on those terms.
– Differs from license agreements with Microsoft or
Oracle or any commercial vendor only in the terms
of the contract
– The license agreement is legally binding – it is
enforceable in court
– The license specifies rights and obligations

15. Enforcement of Licenses
 Cease and desist letters are typical first step
 If negotiation fails, lawsuit for copyright infringement
– If the license is violated, the user did not have permission to
use – copy, modify or distribute – the work
 Remedies for copyright infringement include:
– Actual damages – based on proven monetary damages
– Statutory damages – up to $150,000, if willful infringement
– Injunctions – order to cease further use of the work
– Attorney’s fees
 An important limitation on recovery of damages
– Statutory damages and attorney's fees only available if
copyright holder registers the work prior to the infringement or
not later than 3 months after work's publication

16. NDIIPP/Open Source Discussion
 NDIIPP and Open Source
 Copyright and Licenses
 Open Source Licenses
 License Considerations
 Best Practices

17. Open Source Licenses
 Open source software licenses grant users
the right to:
– Create derivative works by modifying the source code
– Reproduce the work by creating copies of the software (in
binary or source forms)
– Distribute the work by making the software available for
download (in either binary or source forms)
 The terms of license specify conditions under
which the software may be used
– Many license conditions relate to distribution of modifications
– If you are not the holder of the copyright and have not been
given permission to redistribute modifications under new
terms, you can’t apply a new license to pre-existing code

18. OSI Open Source Definition
 Free redistribution
 Source code
 Derived works
 Integrity of the author’s source code
 No discrimination against persons or groups
 No discrimination against fields of endeavor
 Distribution of license
 License must not be specific to a product
 License must not restrict other software
 License must be technology-neutral
See http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

19. Important OSI Approved Licenses
 Apache Licenses (1.1 + 2.0)
 Artistic Licenses (Original + 2.0)
 BSD Licenses (New, Simplified)
 GNU Licenses (GPLv2, GPLv3,
LGPL v2.1, LGPL v3, Affero v3)
 Mozilla Licenses (MPL 1.0,
MPL 1.1)

20. Important Difference in Licenses
 A crucial difference among licenses is
their “permissiveness” or “reciprocity”
– If a license is “permissive”, it is possible to “close”
the source but redistribute the binary
• BSD and Apache licenses are permissive; the GPL is not
– The more a license is “reciprocal”, the less likely the
source can be “closed” and still be redistributed
• GNU licenses are generally highly reciprocal

21. NDIIPP/Open Source Discussion
 NDIIPP and Open Source
 Copyright and Licenses
 Open Source Licenses
 License Considerations
 Best Practices

22. Which License? Considerations
 Your institution's policies
– Employers can claim copyright of employee's work
 Your contractual obligations
– Contracts can include a transfer of copyright
 The existing codebase
– Reuse of any snippet of open source code for which
you do not hold copyright is restricted by its license

23. Choosing a License
 Adopt a license approved by the Open Source
Initiative (OSI) at opensource.org
 Avoid license proliferation, use a popular license
like Apache, BSD, GPL, LGPL, or MPL
 Choosing a license can be like choosing a religion
– How strongly do you feel about the statement “ALL Software
should be free?”
– Would you be upset, or proud if someone else makes money
from your copyright?
– If your project is wildly successful, will you still be happy with
your license choice?
Analogy used by Donald Smith, Eclipse Foundation, Open Source
Licensing for Developers, http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
download.php?file=/technology/phoenix/talks/Licensing-for-
Developers.ppt

24. If you are building on (or including)
existing Open Source code
 Review the licensor's interpretation of their license
– Not because it is necessarily legally correct
– But because it will be licensor’s argument in any dispute
 Not all licenses are compatible
– GPL-licensed code can't be combined and distributed
with BSD-licensed code
– LGPL-licensed code can be utilized by BSD code
 Not all licenses define “use” of code identically
– MPL distinguishes modifications by file contents
– GPL distinguishes modifications by interfaces

25. If you are creating new Open
Source code
 Source code can be released under multiple
licenses
– Licenses do not grant exclusive use
 Copyright holders don't need license to copy,
modify or distribute own works
– Can distribute the source
– Likely to produce “forks” if licenses are incompatible
- when contributors only add their new code under
one of the licenses

26. NDIIPP/Open Source Discussion
 NDIIPP and Open Source
 Copyright and Licenses
 Open Source Licenses
 License Considerations
 Best Practices

27. Challenges with Open Source
• Fragmented, abandoned,
niche projects
– Open source is evaluated
like other software (e.g.
Magic Quadrant)
• Documentation may be
scant
• Support and training may
be lacking

28. Best practices…begin at the end
 Placing works into open source is the
beginning of development activity, not
the end
 Upload to Source Forge or another
portal
 Select a project management /
development strategy

29. Resources
 Open Source Initiative – http://www.opensource.org
 Specific licenses
– GPL - http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html
– Apache - http://www.apache.org/licenses/
– MPL - http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/
 Source Forge – http://www.sourceforge.net
 Creative Commons – http://creativecommons.org
 Open Source Lab, Oregon State University
– http://osuosl.org
 Open Source Lab, Stanford University
– http://www.stanford.edu/group/opensource/cgi-bin/blog/

30. Questions
Image: “Copyright,” http://xkcd.com/14/, used pursuant to Creative
Commons Non Commercial Attribution license.