What is Open Source

							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.

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

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

NDIIPP and Open Source


NDIIPP
– A cooperative, collaborative community – Building a toolbox of software

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Open Source
– Software programs – Built by collaborative communities

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
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What Open Source isn't
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Proprietary software
– “Shareware” – “Freeware”

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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

Benefits of Open Source
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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

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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

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Users become involved as developers

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

Copyright and Licenses
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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

“Rights” included in Copyright
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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

Example of Copyright Derivatives
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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.

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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

“Rights” not included in Copyright
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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”

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Copyright protects the expression, not the idea.

Summary of Copyright Protection
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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

Role of Licenses
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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

Enforcement of Licenses
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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
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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

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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

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

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)

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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

OSI Open Source Definition
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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

Important OSI Approved Licenses
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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)

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Important Difference in Licenses
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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

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

Which License? Considerations
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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

Choosing a License
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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-forDevelopers.ppt

If you are building on (or including) existing Open Source code
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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
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Not all licenses define “use” of code identically – MPL distinguishes modifications by file contents – GPL distinguishes modifications by interfaces

If you are creating new Open Source code
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Source code can be released under multiple licenses
– Licenses do not grant exclusive use

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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

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

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

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
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Resources
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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/

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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/

Questions

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