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Jacobsen Revisited: Conditions, Covenants And The Future Of Open-Source Software Licenses, Yamini Menon
Jacobsen Revisited: Conditions, Covenants And The Future Of Open-Source Software Licenses, Yamini Menon
Washington Journal of Law, Technology & Arts
Open-source software licensing has become mainstream in the field of software development. Nowhere is this more evident than in the 2008 Federal Circuit decision Jacobsen v. Katzer, where the court first interpreted the terms of an open-source software license. The Jacobsen decision offers an important first step in how to interpret the terms of an open-source license, though it does not address how to interpret licenses other than the Artistic License. This Article explores how Jacobsen’s reasoning can be used to interpret the terms of other open-source licenses, particularly the GPL v.2, GPL v.3, Apache License v.2, BSD …