451 CAOS Theory 
A blog for the enterprise open source community
U.S. court confirms open source license legitimacy
Jay Lyman, August 14, 2008 @ 4:57 pm ETThere was a major open source legal development this week and surprisingly, it did not involve the string of BusyBox lawsuits, which included settlement from mobile and telecom giant Verizon in March 2008. Instead, the latest open source victory involves a federal appeals court ruling that basically upholds the idea and enforcement of ‘copyleft.’
The ruling, which centered on the Artistic License, made it clear that regardless of whether software is open source or proprietary, its creators have a right to attach requirements and conditions that govern its use and distribution. So to those who have argued that the GPL or other open source licenses might be thrown out of court, there is now more concrete proof. Open source software and its licensing are not some strange legal realm. Instead, GPL and other open source licenses base much of their meaning on existing, accepted laws, particularly U.S. copyright law and with GPLv3, international copyrigt law.
During the BusyBox GPL enforcement cases over the last year, there have been calls for actual courtroom hearings rather than settlement. The thinking is this would go further to solidifying the legality and legitimacy of the GPL and open source licensing in general. However, I still believe that the settlements, particularly from the likes of Verizon, do as much to bolster open source licensing. Now it appears open source supporters can have it both ways given the string of BusyBox settlements and the recent ruling that reinforces one of the basic tenets of open source, copyleft, in U.S. legal books.
Comments (5) Categories: Software
While all of this is true. There is still the issue of just exactly how “open” some open source licenses are. i.e. how many restrictions should open source developers put on others? How far is too far? At BMC we choose to provide our users (and yes even our competitors) with as many rights as possible. This is part of the reason we selected the BSD.
Thanks whurley,
Appreciate you weighing in. I think you highlight the range and choice of open source licensing that can make it very complicated to those not as experienced or familiar with open source. In open source, license choice affects the development, business model, etc. more than just laying out the terms for the software’s use.
So you guys went with BSD, and I think that makes sense. My question is, do you think BSD, despite the benefits you and your organization clearly see, is less effective and efficient at creating an open source community than a more restrictice license, such as the GPL? Just curious.
Thanks again,
JL
[...] U.S. court confirms open source license legitimacy Via The 451 Group blog “There was a major open source legal development this week and surprisingly, it did not involve the string of BusyBox lawsuits, which included settlement from mobile and telecom giant Verizon in March 2008. Instead, the latest open source victory involves a federal appeals court ruling that basically upholds the idea and enforcement of ‘copyleft.’” [...]
[...] U.S. court confirms open source license legitimacy Via The 451 Group blog “There was a major open source legal development this week and surprisingly, it did not involve the string of BusyBox lawsuits, which laptop ac adapter included settlement from mobile and telecom giant Verizon in March 2008. Instead, the latest open source victory involves a federal appeals court ruling that basically upholds the idea and enforcement of ‘copyleft.’” [...]
[...] Jay Lyman: U.S. court confirms open source license legitimacy [...]