Law Commons^™

Open Source, Free Software And Contractual Issues, Jose Javier González De Alaiza

ExpressO

“Free software” is an increasingly used form to license computer programs, which on the one hand gives users the rights to use, modify and redistribute the program; and, on the other, forces any person redistributing an original or modified version of the program to license it with the same rights. Such a forced obligation is introduced through the so called “copyleft clause” and, basically, uses Copyright in a creative way to achieve freedom instead of control.

This paper discusses the “free software” foundations and contractual issues. The discussion is structured in two main parts and Conclusion. In Part II, the …

General Public License 3.0: Hacking The Free Software Movement's Constitution, Robert W. Gomulkiewicz

Articles

The General Public License (GPL) enshrines a software hacker’s freedom to use code in important ways. Hackers often refer to the GPL as the free software movement’s “constitution.” Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) wrote the most recent version of the GPL, version 2.0, back in 1991. For a constitution, a fourteen-year-old document is young, but for a license, it is quite old. The revision process is finally underway, led by Stallman and Eben Moglen, FSF’s general counsel.

The release of GPL version 3.0 will be momentous for many reasons, but one reason stands out: The GPL …

Opening Up To Open Source, Shawn W. Parker

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

The latest "revolution" in the software industry has nothing to do with breakthrough technology; the revolution is a rethinking of how software technology is held, developed, and distributed. The revolution is called "open source," although it has also been called "freeware," and "copyleft." Each term generically describes the movement, yet implies wildly different ideas to the developers, distributors, and users inside the open source community. Open source is not a company, but rather, a community; projects are established and programmers communicate and contribute software building blocks to each other via the Internet. When a software program is completed by this …