Understanding Open Source And Free Software

Many developers may believe in releasing their software freely, but they've hesitated because licensing issues are complicated, and their managers are afraid of losing control of the software. This concise guide clears up the confusion over open source and free software licenses, and shows developers how to use them effectively. The book focuses on annotated licenses, and readers will find an in-depth explanation of how they compare and interoperate, and how license choices affect project possibilities. Any software developer (not just members of the open source community) can read this book to discover what an open source software license actually is and how to draft one for their own use.

Andrew M. St. Laurent is an experienced lawyer with a long-time interest in intellectual property, particularly software licensing.

Preface	p. ix
Open Source Licensing, Contract, and Copyright Law	p. 1
Basic Principles of Copyright Law	p. 1
Contract and Copyright	p. 3
Open Source Software Licensing	p. 4
Issues with Copyrights and Patents	p. 7
The Open Source Definition	p. 8
Warranties	p. 11
The MIT, BSD, Apache, and Academic Free Licenses	p. 14
The MIT (or X) License	p. 14
The BSD License	p. 15
The Apache License, v1.1 and v2.0	p. 17
The Academic Free License	p. 24
Application and Philosophy	p. 30
The GPL, LGPL, and Mozilla Licenses	p. 34
GNU General Public License	p. 35
GNU Lesser General Public License	p. 49
The Mozilla Public License 1.1 (MPL 1.1)	p. 62
Application and Philosophy	p. 81
Qt, Artistic, and Creative Commons Licenses	p. 85
The Q Public License	p. 85
Artistic License (Perl)	p. 90
Creative Commons Licenses	p. 98
Non-Open Source Licenses	p. 114
Classic Proprietary License	p. 114
Sun Community Source License	p. 120
Microsoft Shared Source Initiative	p. 144
Legal Impacts of Open Source and Free Software Licensing	p. 147
Entering Contrcts	p. 148
Statutory Developments Related to Software Contracts	p. 150
The Self-Enforcing Nature of Open Source and Free Software Licenses	p. 151
The Global Scope of Open Source and Free Software Licensing	p. 153
The "Negative Effects" of Open Source and Free Software Licensing	p. 154
Community Enforcement of Open Source and Free Software Licenses	p. 158
Compatible and Incompatible Licensing: Multiple and Cross Licensing	p. 159
Software Development Using Open Source and Free Software Licenses	p. 164
Models of Open Source and Free Software Development	p. 164
Forking	p. 171
Choosing an Open Source or Free Software License	p. 174
Drafting Open Source Licenses	p. 176
Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs License	p. 179
Index	p. 185
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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Understanding Open Source And Free Software Licensing

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