This document discusses various topics around software licensing including: - Different types of licenses like MIT, GPL, MPL, Apache, and BSD and factors to consider when choosing a license. - Intellectual property concepts including trademarks, patents, copyright, and trade secrets. Software patents are de facto legal in Ukraine and the US. - Licensing considerations for open source projects like dual licensing, copyleft licenses, and using contributor license agreements. - Recommendations like using permissive licenses like CC0, ISC, and Apache 2.0 to make it easier for others to use code and reduce legal risks.

2. @listochkin

3. This talk is not a legal
advice
Talk to your lawyer

4. Also:
In Ukraine I’m not required
to make this disclaimer

5. <3 Ruby

6. 8 days total

7. No Ruby Today

8. JavaScript
Bash XML
Rust

9. RustFest 2017 Kyiv

10. Videos are up!

11. Software Licensing

12. OpenSource

13. Which License to Choose?

14. MIT

15. End of Story

16. GPL
MPL
Apache
Eclipse
ICS
BSD
EU-PL
CDDL

17. Facebook PATENTS file
Oracle-Google JDK lawsuit
Ubuntu ZFS inclusion
OpenSSL licence change
etc.

18. Hard stuff!

19. Walkthrough

20. US
EU
Ukraine
…

21. Trade Secret
Trademark
Patent
Copyright

22. Trade Secret

23. Between you and your
employer/partner

24. Trademark

25. Unregistered™
Registered®

26. Linux

27. Come up with the name
Check if it is in use
If not you’re good
® and ™ aren’t required

28. Patents

29. Software Patents

30. de jure illegal in Ukraine
de facto legal in the US
thus de facto legal in Ukraine, too!

31. WTO
Agreement on Trade-Related
Aspects of Intellectual Property
Rights (TRIPS)
162 WTO countries
Notable exception: Belarus

32. Software Patents are here

33. Copyright

34. Berne Convention
© is not required

35. Author’s rights
vs
Copyright

36. You work at X and write code
Ukraine: you are the (co-)author
US: X is an author

37. © 2010-2016
What’s the deal?

38. Publication date
defines
Expiry date

39. Changed file?
New edition

40. Date is not always current!
E.g. content hasn’t changed

41. You have no right
to change website copyright year
on January 1st if site content
didn’t change

42. Licensing
&
Public Domain

43. Old works transfer to public domain
automatically
Government code can be public
domain automatically

44. Dedicate to public domain
Can be illegal in many countries
Germany

45. Unlicense
CC0

46. Who owns copyright?

47. WFH
Work-for-hire

48. US
if no terms are defined in the
contract you give copyright to the
company

49. Licensing

50. OpenSource

51. Free Software Foundation
OpenSource Initiative
Debian, OpenBSD, Apache

52. Goal?

53. 1. Just share the code
2. Fame and Recognition
3. Guarantee contributions
4. Allow double-licensing
5. Force OpenSource

54. 1. Just Share the Code

55. WTFPL
Unlicense
CC0

56. WTFPL

57. No warranty clause

58. If your WTFPL code doesn’t
work
I can sue you and WIN

59. Unlicense

60. Public Domain dedication
Illegal in some countries

61. CC0

62. Falls back from PD to
super-permissive license
NOT OSI-approved

63. OMG WTF?!

64. Dual Licensing

65. CC0 + ISC + Apache2

66. CC0
ICS: permissive
Apache2: … + patents

67. What’s up with patents?

68. Apache
All contributors share patents
Only the ones that they have
Ones that are required
Common defence pool

69. Don’t own patents?
No risk for you

70. 2. Fame and Recognition

71. ISC + Apache

72. ICS ≈ MIT ≈ 2-clause BSD

73. 1. State my name
2. No warranty

74. Why not BSD?
Too many variants

75. Why not MIT?
1. Also many variants!
2. “Use” may imply patent
grant

76. ISC is the new MIT
default on npm

77. 3. Guarantee contributions

78. LGPL

79. C/C++ semantics
No equivalence in many
languages
Best to avoid

80. File Copyleft

81. MPL2
EPL
CDDL

82. Big issue:
GPL compatibility

83. GPLv2
GPLv2 or later
GPLv3
AGPL
AGPL or later
AGPLv3
with Classpath Exception
with Linking Exception
…

84. MPL2 has it built-in!

85. CDDL and EPL
are incompatible

86. MPL2
EPL + LGPL2^ + AGPL3^

87. 4. Dual-Licensing

88. OpenSource + Commercial

89. OpenCore
Crippleware

90. ExtJS
MongoDB
SugarCRM
…

91. Where is it Deployed?

92. Client: GPL
Server: AGPL
Client-Server: AGPL + Apache/ISC

93. Why not GPL for servers?

94. GPL provisions trigger
on Distribution

95. 20000 engineers write server code
Billions of people use this code
1 company
No distribution

96. Contractor?
Distribution

97. Employee at a service
company?
Distribution

98. Contribution
License
Agreement

99. You assign copyright to a project
Project decides
on licensing terms

100. 5. Force OpenSource

101. AGPLv3
GPLv3
GPLv2^

102. CLA

103. Do you need a CLA
on your project?

104. YES and NO

105. Project license doesn’t
define the license
of contributions!

106. Inbound != Outbound

107. GitHub ToS has a “CLA”
D.6.

108. Employees

109. US
An employee assignes
copyright to the employer by
default

110. You may want a CLA-like

111. Linux: Developer Certificate
of Origin
Berneout Pledge
AUTHORS Certificate
etc.

112. Other Concerns

113. License notice in each file
Licences in minified JS
Licenses for all deps
AUTHORS file
CLA/DSO/Pledge

114. BG // before GitHub
AG // after GitHub

115. We can do better to ease
the life of others and
reduce legal risks

116. CC0 + ISC + Apache2

117. “Yes, patents exist,
we’re all in this together”

118. “Yes, use it in your
closed-source project”

119. “Yes, I know you’ll forget to put my
name and license into a final build,
and that’s OK”

120. Take Actions!

121. 1. StackOverflow MIT
Add CC0/ISC to your profile

122. 2. Read Your Contracts!

123. 3. Don’t be afraid to
dual-licence

124. 1. CC0 + ISC + Apache2
2. ISC + Apache2
3. MPL2
4. …
5. …

125. Or just use MIT because
nobody cares anymore

126. Stories:
Facebook PATENTS file
Oracle vs Google
OpenSSL license change
Ubuntu ZFS