Applied Copyleft (03 10 2008)

Applied
Copyleft
Advokat Martin von Haller Groenbaek
Partner, Bender von Haller Dragsted

Open Source Days, Copenhagen, 3 October 2008

lørdag den 11. oktober 2008 1

Questions
Copyleft 1.0.1 Escapes

What is a Enforcement
derivative work?
Damages
Combinations
Licenses
Distribution


Personalia
IT-Lawyer, partner at Bender von Haller Dragsted

Co-founder of Forening for Dansk Internet Handel
(FDIH), Open Source Leverandør Foreningen (OSL),
Danish Chapter of Internet Society (ISOC DK), DK-
Hostmaster A/S and the like

Board member of several SME IT companies

Legal counsel to OSS developers and public
institutions (even works with Microsoft!)

I am not a hacker, computer scientist BUT

“in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed is king”


Full Disclosure
I make good money from advising on open
source law

I want to promote my open source brand

I want you to pay money to me for legal
services

I am legal counsel to Open Source Days

They pay me with a sponsorship

I love open source!


The ideology

You get the four freedoms
You shall preserve these
freedoms
So when you redistribute,
copyleft secures that the next
persons gets the same freedoms


FLOSS - some basics
Copyright based

Not public domain

Licenses vs. contracts

Free software vs. open source software

Dual licensing

Copyleft, “Viral” or Hereditary


Copyleft - the basics

You don’t have to redistribute or distribute

(Exception: “written offer valid for any third
party” in GPL, v. 2)

Comply or cease use, or call back distribution

Make combined program, including
modiﬁcations and otherwise closed code
available under GPL (or compatible licens)


Derivative work
A work based on one or more pre-existing
works

Improvement, translation, correction

Not collective work

Modiﬁcations are copyrighted themselves

Very few court cases

GPL: Combinations


Combination
Combination of code Semantics of the
into a whole communication

NB: All combinations Output not covered
are permitted and
“private” combinations (Exc: GPL program
have no restrictions copies text into output)

Mechanism of Output of language
communication interpreter

exec, pipes, rpc, (Exc: “bindings”
function calls within interpreter to
a shared address program)
space, etc.


Combination cont.
CMS Templates fork and exec to
invoke plug-ins
Exc: Javascript calls
System library exception
Microsoft Visual C++ (or
Visual Basic) DLLs Aggregate work is not
combined work
Plug-ins under a GPL
program Linking exception

dynamically linked LGPL allows linking to
plug-ins closed applications

Java archive ﬁles


Distribution
GPL v2: Distribution Contractors on/off-
site
GPL v3: Propagation
and Conveyance Outsourcing

In soft- and Mergers and
hardware Acquisitions

ASP loophole og Let recipient
network exception download the GPL’ed
code
Affero Public License


Escapes
Make deal with NDA: Developer can
licensor agree not to
release changes at
Replace code all

Work around NDA: Developer can
agree only to
GPL v3, sec. 8 release changes to
customer
Termination
notice


Enforcement
The GPL is enforceable!

Germany 2004: Netﬁlter/Iptables; 2006: D-Link

US 2007: BusyBox; 2008: Jacobsen vs. Katzer

SCO

Copyright holder

Licensee

GPL-VIOLATIONS.ORG


Damages
Compensation under copyright

No penal damages or stipulated damages

Economic loss suffered by licensor

Rule of thumb: 2 x license fee plus fee for
continued use

Injunction

Legal fees


Licenses
“Version 2 of the GPL or any later version”

User: GPL v. 3 more permissive or
restrictive

Developer: Free to choose for future
versions of program

GPL compatibility

FLOSS Exception


Thanks for the
attention!

mhg@bvhd.dk
martin@groenbaek.net
http://www.bvhd.dk
http://suse.groenbaek.net/openlife


Applied Copyleft (03 10 2008)

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