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By Andrew M. St. Laurent
First Edition
August 2004
Pages: 207
ISBN 10: 0-596-00581-4 |
ISBN 13: 9780596005818
(Average of 2 Customer Reviews)
Licensing is a major part of what open source and free software are all about, but it's still one of the most complicated areas of law. Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing explains your licensing options, how they compare and interoperate, and how license choices affect project possibilities. If you're an open source/free software developer, this book is an absolute necessity.
Full Description
If you've held back from developing open source or free software projects because you don't understand the implications of the various licenses, you're not alone. Many developers believe in releasing their software freely, but have hesitated to do so because they're concerned about losing control over their software. Licensing issues are complicated, and both the facts and fallacies you hear word-of-mouth can add to the confusion.
Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing helps you make sense of the different options available to you. This concise guide focuses on annotated licenses, offering an in-depth explanation of how they compare and interoperate, and how license choices affect project possibilities. Written in clear language that you don't have to be a lawyer to understand, the book answers such questions as: What rights am I giving up? How will my use of OS/FS licensing affect future users or future developers? Does a particular use of this software--such as combining it with proprietary software--leave me vulnerable to lawsuits?
Following a quick look at copyright law, contracts, and the definition of "open source," the book tackles the spectrum of licensing, including:
Browse within this book
- The MIT (or X), BSD, Apache and Academic Free licenses
- The GPL, LGPL, and Mozilla licenses
- The QT, Artistic, and Creative Commons licenses
- Classic Proprietary licenses
- Sun Community Source license and Microsoft Shared Source project
Cover | Table of Contents | Colophon
Featured customer reviews
Invaluable reference for IP attorneys counseling software developers, March 12 2008
Rating:
Submitted by Anonymous Reader [Respond | View]
This book has been an invaluable tool for me counseling clients on open source issues for the past 2+ years (my copy is laden with post-it flags and hand-written notes). Just having all the major software open source licenses together in one place is well worth it -- the great analysis is icing on the cake.
It would be great to see an update of this book, given the increasing adoption and use of open source, and the increasing scrutiny it is receiving in the mergers/acquisitions and financing contexts.
A Worthwhile Introduction to Open Source Licensing, January 29 2005
Rating:
Submitted by
Barry Hawkins
[Respond | View]
Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing
Andrew M. St. Laurent
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/osfreesoft/
When sharing with others that I was reviewing an O'Reilly book through their User Group & Professional Association Program, the first question was always the same: "What book are you reviewing?" After saying the title was "Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing", responses ranged from "What's that?" to "Well, you won't have any trouble sleeping!" One might think that this list of people included relatives and coworkers who were not attuned to the open source community and its issues. On the contrary, the responses came from those within my circle of acquaintances that include software developers, system administrators, and even an intellectual property lawyer. Licensing is not exactly the sort of topic where people slide forward in their seats and ask to be told more. Such is the appeal of software licensing; however, the importance of understanding licensing, particularly within the context of open source development, cannot be overstated.
Those familiar with the O'Reilly product offerings have no doubt seen or purchased one or more their Pocket Reference series (http://pocketrefs.oreilly.com/). They are not comprehensive references, but rather convenient guides for a specific topic to provide the sort of information one is not likely to have committed to memory, particularly as the trend of having cross-disciplined technologists continues. This book could be considered the analog of pocket guides for open source and free software licensing. Open source licenses and their legal interpretation are subject matter that easily warrant a "pocket reference" that is a full-sized book of nearly 200 pages.
Frankly, reading through a software license and maintaining a reasonable level of comprehension is a rather tough job. The author manages to make the task far more bearable and fruitful at the same time; a difficult balance to strike. The pace of the annotation works well to break up the various licenses (twelve in total) into bite-sized chunks. Chapters 2 and 3, which address the Apache/BSD/MIT family of licenses and the GPL/LGPL/MPL family of licenses respectively, each end with a section titled "Application and Philosophy" that serves as a sort of reward for making it through the license and establishes a touchstone to summarize and provide meaningful context for what has been covered.
The annotations of the different licenses are a great introduction, but the book should not be considered as a complete reference for open source licensing issues. The book seems to affirm this at points where the author indicates that particular topics fall outside the book's scope, even to the point of recommending experienced legal counsel for certain issues. It also has a wonderful collection of footnotes and reference to other resources to allow the reader to flesh out topics of interest beyond the focus of this work.
One subtlety of the book that should not be missed is how the history of the open source movement is woven throughout the book to provide the context in which these licenses came into being and were modified to accommodate the vibrant, emerging world of open development models. The book's last two chapters bring that context to the foreground, fully developing the consequence of the licenses in daily development activity. It is far too easy to view these licenses and as mere legal documents that exist in and of themselves; the author reminds us that these licenses are the manifestations of a spirit of selfless contribution and work toward social good made possible by the considerable sacrifice of quite gifted individuals. For those passionate about the open source and free software movements, the section of chapter 7 titled "Models of Open Source and Free Software Development" is a poignant and stirring encapsulation of the first years of the GNU and Linux projects and the work that brought them into being. The cliché rings true; we do indeed "stand on the shoulders of giants."
The number of editorial errors involving misspelled and/or missing words seemed relatively high; this is a trend that seems to have developed in technical books in recent years, to a point that the technical community has come to accept it as some sort of side effect of the rapid pace with which books must be produced in order to keep pace with the rate of change. Given that this is an issue present in other works as well as this one, it should not particularly count as a mark against the work, but rather serve to underscore an issue publishers should consider improving.
"Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing" is a book which strikes a balance between completeness of subject matter coverage and manageability of size. Given the amount of attention the average open source user or developer has given to licensing, reading this book would be a considerable improvement. This book is recommended for a couple of audiences. First, it serves as a great foundation for developers either active in or contemplating participation in open source development. Searching most any open source mailing list for the term "license" can usually turn up some of its hottest flame wars. If most developers had this introductory level of understanding about the main open source licenses, hundreds of message threads arguing about licensing could be avoided.
A second audience for this book is the project manager and/or CTO in most corporate IT shops. Most corporate projects are making use of numerous open source libraries and frameworks. This is particularly true with J2EE, but also with .Net as a number of .Net counterparts to popular J2EE resources arise, e.g. NAnt, NUnit, etc. This book can dispel unnecessary apprehension regarding the use of these libraries that often arises from fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) propagated in much of the mainstream technology media. It can also equip managers to make informed decisions about team members' potential contributions to open source projects and the potential legal implications.
documentation licenses, June 21 2004
Submitted by Anonymous Reader [Respond | View]
The book doesn't cover the GFDL or Open Publication License in any depth, though it does cover the Creative Commons licenses.
The GFDL and OPL are both designed for a different business and legal environment than software, and tend to be used specifically for documentation. I'm hoping we can get the author to take a look at them in articles, but they aren't in the book itself.
Review of the Full Description, June 16 2004
Submitted by Nick Urbanik [Respond | View]
Academics are befuddled by the range of licenses for publishing teaching material. Witness the confusion on the ,a href="http://bat.vr.ucl.ac.uk/pipermail/otb/">Open Text Book mailing list. Should we choose GFDL, Open Publication License, or which of the variety of available Creative Commons licenses? What are the consequenses of each choice?
I was eager to read about these, then found that these issues are missing from the Full Description. I would hope that there is at least some discussion of this important and little understood topic.
Media reviews
"You should purchase this book because you care about freedom, both for yourself and for your end users. This book will show you the licenses, explain how they can be used, and give you the information needed to make informed decisions. Knowing the details, the factual ones and not the FUD, will make you the “go to” person when these type of questions arise. You will have the ability to really bring out the positive benefits of open source software. Open source licensing is what keeps freedom available for all."
-- Brian Turner, Free Software Magazine
"With the right blend of legal issues and discussions, licensing alternatives available to CxOs, rights for free software engineers, and insight into understand the culture of the open-source community for the closed-source businessperson, St. Laurent outdoes himself in this installment. Style and preciseness are among St. Laurent's strongest traits. This book becomes more of a definitive guide to licensing for open source and free software, as well as proprietary works. Annotated clause by clause, this book presents a clear, comprehensive flow through the licenses presented... Being a developer of both closed source and open-source software projects, I've found this book infinitely helpful! It answered the questions I've been seeking and will prove to be a reference in the future. I recommend this book to expert and novice developers, and equally to open-source vigilantes and closed-source defenders!"
--Philip O'Brien, Dalhousie Student Chapter ACM, April 2005
"Frankly, reading through a software license and maintaining a reasonable level of comprehension is a rather tough job. The author manages to make the task far more bearable and fruitful at the same time; a difficult balance to strike...Understanding Open Source & Free Software Licensing strikes a balance between completeness of subject matter coverage and manageability of size. Given the amount of attention the average open source user or developer has given to licensing, reading this book would be a considerable improvement...it serves as a great foundation for developers either active in or contemplating participation in open source development."
--Barry Hawkins, Slashdot.org, January 2005
"...the book discusses licensing issues in the context of problems that have to be resolved by developers who want to release their software freely. Readers don't need to have any particular knowledge of law. The author does not engage in attempts to use entertaining language as a sweetener, but relies on plain language. It works well...this is a lucid exposition of copyright, patent and warranty issues. Apart from those with an immediate interest in copyright etc., it is an important text for anyone with a big-picture interest in open source software."
--Major Keary, Book News, 2005:1
Read all reviews
"This book will show you the licenses, explain how they can be used, and give you the information needed to make informed decisions. Knowing the details, the factual ones and not the FUD, will make you the 'go to' person when these type of questions arise."
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