Software Licensing: What they are and what they are.
To mark the International Week of Technological Innovation, the European University of Madrid asked me to give a paper on the licensing of Software and in particular free and open source as part of the Days of Free Knowledge 2009. I summarize the main ideas:
As you know, the mere fact of creating a computer program gives intellectual property rights to the author about his work (the software on your computer), without having to carry out registration. The right given to it is twofold: firstly, is granted moral rights and other rights.
The author can not decide on their moral rights (are inalienable and can not assign), but has full provision on the property, which are the economic benefits. The author has recognized an exclusive right to exploit the work can decide whether or not to get economic performance and in what form. It uses a special type of contract known license.
Through licensing the author assigns certain rights to the user and reserves the rest. The license also includes restrictions and prohibitions that prevent the user to perform certain acts, as well as the guarantees offered by the author on the operation of a computer program. It never usually missing the applicable law and jurisdiction, that will indicate which law applies in case of conflict and the courts that will decide the case.
If a computer program without a license, it is presumed that the author has decided to reserve all rights. In these cases often said that the program is protected by Copyrigth, although the term is not legally correct, and for Spain. Either way, we would have a computer program on which the author has booked, among others, the rights of reproduction in whole or in part (even for personal use), the transformation of the program (translation, adaptation, arrangement ...) and their distribution .
In contrast, the existence of a license means that not all rights are reserved. Basically, we can find 4 types of licenses: private, semi-free, free reciprocal and free (to dry). The deprivation are often used for commercial purposes because they are those that do not allow virtually anything with your code. The semi-free contain certain restrictions, for example, the inability to create derivative works but allowing free distribution of copies of the original. Free reciprocal are those that require that derivative works are also free. And the free (for short) are those that allow derivative works license even as proprietary and commercial use.
The four freedoms on which should underpin all free licenses are, according to the Free Software Foundation: to be able to use the software for any purpose, study how it works, the power to redistribute copies, and finally the power to change the program and publish their improvements. Necessarily have to be open source so they can accomplish some of these freedoms, not be sufficient simply to release binaries. A license that fulfills all may be recognized as free by the FSF. In addition, the license shall meet the definition of the OSI (Open Source Initiative), to be recognized as Open Source. The main difference between the FSF and OSI is its ideological foundation, the first of more freedom as a participant in the philosophical aspiration and the second as a utility.
Licenses free and open source are dozens mainly due to its dramatic proliferation in the 90s. Today, their numbers tend to stabilize for a practical reason: the greater the number of different licenses, more complex in their combination. The main ones are
- GNU GPL: License official with strong copyleft GNU Project, which implies that the distributions and modified versions have to be under GNU GPL
- GNU LGPL: License similar to the GNU GPL Copyleft weak but allows linking to proprietary software do not always commercially
- BSD License originally from Berkeley, lacks Copyleft and was strongly criticized by the FSF to allow modified versions may be depriving
- X11: simple, permissive original license from MIT and also used by XFree86. Copyleft but it is not compatible with GNU GPL
- MPL: License control for the Mozilla browser but widely used by software developers in general. Meets the definition of OSI and the 4 freedoms of the FSF, but is incompatible with GNU GPL.
- CDDL: MPL-based license 1.1, produced by Sun Microsystems, which meets the definition of OSI and the 4 freedoms of the FSF, but is incompatible with GNU GPL.
- Apache Foundation License: Requires a use permit include patent as its practical application in Spain is questioned. Only version 2.0 is free software and its compatibility with GNU GPL is doubtful
If a computer program released under one of the above licenses may also be appropriate to release the documents annexed thereto. In principle, the preparatory documents have as part of the software and manuals are the same protection as computer programs, however, you may opt for a GNU FDL, FreeBSD or even Creative Commons or Color Juris which also includes the possibility of registering the work.
The implementation of a free license to a computer program is quite simple, once you have decided that you want to apply. You only have to add a reference to the license in the header of each file containing source code, along with the cardholder's name and year of release, including the full text of the license-in their original language in plain text file located in the root folder.
After a brief round of questions, my paper ended up here, which put an end to the Conference on Free Knowledge, organized by the EMU, which I was honored to share a table with David Fernandez (GLUEM), Enrique Dans (IE), Gumersindo Lafuente (Director of Soitu), José Carlos Cortizo (GLUEM, EMU Wipley), Raul Murciano (freelance), Merce Molist (journalist) and Adrian Yanes (GLUEM).
Materials:
- Download presentation in Open Office (odp) / Microsoft Office (ppt) / View online presentation.
- Download Brochure of the International Week of Technological Innovation
- View the Official Website of Free Knowledge Conference 2009
- See note Abanlex Lawyers (Official Partner of the Days)
[slideshare id = 1230413 & doc = licenciasdesoftware-090331201321-phpapp01 & w = 425]
If this article was helpful, invite me to a half-pint (Hint: 3 € for 1 / 2 pint)
Excellent talk, Paul, was very interesting and instructive. The issue of licensing has a lot of beer and generally most people do not arise in the deep.
Always a pleasure to have you for days: D
Thank you very much for coming!
Your talk was fundamental. In fact it's subject matter must for every self-respecting engineer. Thank you very much for your cooperation.