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On the Whys and Wherefores of Open Source Licenses

This week brings some interesting debates on open source licenses, their limits and shortcomings, and their strengths. For example, this post explores a number of misconceptions that people have about the General Public License (GPL), which is the license behind about two in three open source software projects, as shown by Black Duck Software here. The case discussed in the post concerns a Goldman Sachs Group programmer, Sergey Aleynikov, who was arrested--by the FBI, no less--and charged with stealing computer code designed to automate Goldman Sachs' massive trading business. Aleynikov's defense was that he was only trying to download open source software governed by the GPL.

Meanwhile, as Savio Rodrigues notes, on August 31st, a "smackdown" debate on open source licenses will take place in Ottawa, Canada. Luminaries from the open source world will each defend various types of open source licenses, and everyone is invited to submit questions for the smackdown. You can submit your questions here, and they'll be answered during the virtual event, which you can sign up for here.

ARN's post on the case of Sergey Aleynikov delves into why he didn't just seek to download open source code from public repositories, which is a good question. It also delves into whether open source code can be stolen. Legal and open source experts point out that open source code can be stolen. It's worth reading the post for the details, but, to quickly sum up, the GPL fairly strictly governs rights to distribute and use code. Most importantly in the Goldman Sachs case, the GPL dictates that companies that modify open-source software for internal use don't have to share their modifications with everyone.

If you're rusty on how open source licenses work, or if you're launching an open source project and need to pick a license, the Ottawa smackdown sounds worth attending online or in person if you're near Ottawa, and there is free registration. At the event, Alfresco Software executive and blogger Matt Asay will defend the GPL, the Eclipse Foundation’s Executive Director Mike Milinkovich will defend the EPL, and Coverity’s Open Source strategist and BSD board of director will back the BSD. Watch the fur fly!

In case you need to brush up on how open source licenses work, you'll find several easy to follow primers in this post. The Software Freedom Law Center's primer is particularly thorough. 
 

• licenses
• gpl
• bsd
• EPL
• Goldman Sachs

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