This is the "go-to" reference for OpenSource licensing | Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and...

Readable and by a Lawyer. | Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law | Lawrence Rosen

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	• Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law Lawrence Rosen Prentice Hall PTR, 2004 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Must-read for licensors

I have studied and compared Open Source licenses for a number of years. I came to the conclusion that the licenses created by Mr. Rosen were the best and I adopted one of them for my own Open Source projects. I have also read his book on the subject and I have concluded that it is also the best in its field. I recommend his book as a must-read for licensors of Open Source content.

This is the "go-to" reference for OpenSource licensing

I purchased this book 18 months ago, along with two other references. Since that time, I have learned that when I have a question, this is the book to turn to first. In fact, I haven't read the others since first buying them.

This week we had a request to license some code under the CPL. Not only does this book cover that license, but it has a chapter interpreting each of the clever sections, and its repercussions.

As both a licensee and licensor, I have yet to come across an issue which this book did not address. It is the single volume you need.

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Readable and by a Lawyer.

Open source software is growing explosively around the world. The SourceForge web site now lists 87,006 projects being done by 912,545 people. That's almost a million people writing code, probably more than all of the programmers employed by Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, etc. etc.

The code being produced is distributed free of charge. Free of Charge, but not without restrictions. This book, written by the general counsel of the Open Source Initiative is intended to explain the various licenses that are in common use in the Open Source Community. It is written in English, not lawyer-speak, and intended for developers, managers, users and of course lawyers. If this is what you need to know, you'll not find a better source.

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Great for reference

When I recieved this book I was excited, finally I could read a book which would help my brain really understand all the licenses! I sat down to read it, and was impressed with how the author took the popular licenses and broke them down into more easily understandable. I mean, they *are* fairly straight forward, but the author gets into what they actually mean in legal terms, and that's interesting.

Unfortunately it turns out that reading about specifics of Open Source law is not terribly interesting to me (I guess I'll never be a lawer) After the few introduction chapters I had to stop reading straight through it and skip around and skim the parts that interested me.

In my case this is not such a good book for snuggling up with in front of the fire (some computer books are), but it is a fabulous reference book, written for us mere mortals.

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Before you start a software initiative, read this book.

The Open Source/Free Software movement can be very confusing because it is a mixture of ideology, politics and business. To choose the proper license for your purposes you first have to understand the purpose of the various licenses. Some, specially GNU/GPL, are mostly political and ideological in nature in that they try to create a 'right to software.' Others are designed to further either academic or business interests through free software.

Except for Chapter 10, I found the book to be eminently readable. Unfortunately, Chapter 10: Choosing an Open Source License, which can be considered the core of the book, turned my brain to mush and was no help at all choosing a license. The author states:

"If you expect a checklist method to select a license, don't bother reading this chapter; it cannot be so easy."

While from an attorney's point of view this might be correct, from a developer's point of view you don't really have an alternative to creating your own checklist to pick a license. An attorney will give you the attorney's standard solution: "consult your attorney." When you do, your attorney will not pick a license for you, he'll rehash everything in the book and you still have the burden to pick a license. So why not nip in the bud this Catch-22 situation?

My own checklist, created mostly from what I learned from this book, is as follows:

1.- Ideological intent? What is your prime intent, to make a political statement or is it something else like promoting academe or running a business?

2.- Reciprocal licensing? What is more beneficial for your project, reciprocal licensing which limits contributor's choices or non-reciprocal which allows alternative licensing modes for derivative works?

3.- Can you afford an attorney? If not, pick a license template used by a very popular and successful open source project that meets your first two requirements.

Remember that you can always relicense and if your initial choice is not perfect, it can be perfected in time provided you don't chain yourself to some irreversible license.

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