RE: Open Source Licensing

Mike,  

I don't understand your description of the problem. Nothing in an open source license serves as an assignment of authorship or delegation of control of one's own copyrightable works. The original author retains those rights unless he expressly transfers them, in writing, to another person.  

Perhaps what you're describing is the effect of the so-called reciprocity provision in some licenses like the GPL and the Open Software License (OSL, www.rosenlaw.com/osl2.0.html). If your client's work is combined with another open source work so as to create a derivative work, and if the other open source work is licensed under a reciprocal license, your client's work will also have to be so licensed. That's your client's choice to make or to avoid when deciding whether to create a derivative work of someone else's licensed work.  

The reciprocity provision doesn't go so far as to claim authorship over derivative works created by downstream users, nor can an open source license place restrictions on the making of copies by anyone, anywhere, for any purpose. Those things would be contrary to the Open Source Definition.  

As for your client's more important concern over his ability to profit from consulting and support, this is a tried and tested business model for open source developers. There is some discussion of that on the OSI website (www.opensource.org), and there are several other discussion lists on the web that specifically address open source business models.  

/Larry Rosen
General counsel, Open Source Initiative

-----Original Message-----
From: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property [mailto:CNI-COPYRIGHT[_at_]cni.org] On Behalf Of Mike Phillips Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 8:55 AM
To: CNI-COPYRIGHT -- Copyright & Intellectual Property Subject: [CNI-(C)] Open Source Licensing

I've been asked to review a license agreement for a project that involves open source licensing for software. In particular, the author wants to license software that interfaces with open source software, but he wants to be sure that he retains authorship and control over his software. His financial gain will be derived from consulting and support of his product. Can anyone suggest an online primer that would be helpful in pointing out the particularities of such a license?  

Mike Phillips Received on Tue Aug 19 2003 - 23:20:05 GMT