scholarly journals Share and Share Alike: Understanding and Enforcing Open Source and Free Software Licenses

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian W. Carver
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
International Business ◽  
Free Software ◽  
District Court ◽  
Software Developers ◽  
Software Licenses ◽  
Software Licensing

This paper describes the history and the commonly used software licensing terms of the free software and open source movements. It explains the GPL and discusses attempts to enforce the GPL. The GPL is a revolutionary copyright license that has allowed software developers to use existing law to copyright their work, while allowing licensees the freedoms to use, copy, modify, and distribute their work, but not to turn the work into a proprietary derivative. 2005 brought two notable efforts to enforce the license in court. A district court in Munich, Germany declared the GPL valid and enforceable. Meanwhile, litigation between The SCO Group (SCO) and International Business Machines (IBM) may clarify how U.S. courts will interpret the GPL. Suggested Citation: Brian W. Carver, Share and Share Alike: Understanding and Enforcing Open Source and Free Software Licenses, 20 Berkeley Tech. L.J. 443 (2005).

The Social Production of Ethics in Debian and Free Software Communities

2005 ◽  
pp. 273-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
E.G. Coleman ◽  
Benjamin Hill
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Free Software ◽  
Social Production ◽  
Software Projects ◽  
Collaborative Development ◽  
Software Licenses ◽  
The Social ◽  
Volunteer Labor ◽  
Ethnographic Analysis

This chapter examines the way that participation in Free software projects increases commitments to information freedom among participants. With the Debian project as its core case study, it argues that in Free and Open Source software communities, ethics are reinforced through the sustained collaborative development of code and discussions and decisions around Free software licenses and project policy. In the final section, the chapter draws on the ethnographic analysis of ethical cultivation in Debian to describe a model of ethical volunteerism based on institutional independence, volunteer labor, and networks of trust that is applicable to a range of vocations.

Intellectual Property Battles in a Technological Global Economy: A Just War Analysis

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 679-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
David P. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Just War ◽  
Free Software ◽  
Ethical Awareness ◽  
Property A ◽  
Software Licenses ◽  
Just War Tradition ◽  
Word Processors

Abstract:War has broken out in the technological global economy, principally in battles over intellectual property. A particularly fierce aspect of this battle sets people who guard proprietary software against hackers, who want information to be free. The key challenge today is to produce an adequate conceptual lens for seeing what ethically is at stake in this battle. Toward this end, this paper uses the just war tradition to analyze differences between proponents of Free Software and proponents of Open Source Software. This paper’s use of three just war criteria—Just Cause, Right Intention, and Discrimination—illustrates how the just war tradition can raise the level of ethical awareness about the intellectual property wars that continue to rage in the technological global economy.The division between the two [open source and free software] is often bitterly contested, both from inside and outside the communities. The holiest of holy wars are not fought over word processors, operating systems, or compilers. They are all about software licenses.—Joe Barr

Investigating whether and how software developers understand open source software licensing

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel A. Almeida ◽  
Gail C. Murphy ◽  
Greg Wilson ◽  
Michael Hoye
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Software Developers ◽  
Software Licensing

Social Status in an Open-Source Community

2005 ◽  
Vol 70 (5) ◽  
pp. 823-842 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Cues ◽  
Natural Setting ◽  
Laboratory Setting ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Software Developers ◽  
Status Mobility ◽  
The Status

Despite a fair amount of conjecture regarding the circumstances that lead to the generation of status orders, most of the previous literature in this area typically has studied the effects of social cues within a laboratory setting. This article analyzes the evolution of the status hierarchy within a large-scale, natural setting. The results of empirical analyses assessing a large online community of software developers show that in the process of status attainment, community members tend to evaluate a focal actor's reputation according to publicly available social references. Ironically, these same social references also work to constrain an actor's status mobility.

Developing Business Model with Open Source Enterprise Resource Planning

2013 ◽  
pp. 52-63
Author(s):  
Swanand J. Deodhar ◽  
Kulbhushan C. Saxena ◽  
Rajen K. Gupta ◽  
Mikko Ruohonen
Keyword(s):  
Software Development ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Business Model ◽  
Enterprise Resource Planning ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Resource Planning ◽  
Business Applications ◽  
Business Application ◽  
Erp Software ◽  
Software Licensing

Open source approach to software development has been used to develop the so-called ‘horizontal infrastructure’ software such as databases and application servers. However, there is an increasing acceptance of open source approach for developing business applications like enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Indeed, organizations are building business models around ERP and similar business application developed using open source. In this chapter, the authors analyze the business model of one such open source ERP and explain increasing importance of software licensing and partner networks in FOS-ERP business models.

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