Open Source Licensing:
Theory and Practice
Here are PDF versions of a paper and presentation I prepared for a continuing legal education program at the University of Dayton Law School in March, 2004. These are updated from earlier presentations I gave in June, 2000 and March, 2003.
NOTE: These materials are aimed at a non-technical, legally-trained audience that's not familiar with Open Source Software. Please read them in that light.
UD_Open_Source_Chapter_Materials_(03-2004).pdf (178kb)
UD_Open_Source_Presentation_(03-2004).pdf (191kb)
NOTE: These documents are copyright 2000-2004 by NCR Corporation. They may be reproduced in unaltered form provided their copyright notices are retained and attribution is given.
The Free Software Foundation has published an FAQ about the GPL that is worth reading if you're interested in this topic. It does a good job explaining how the FSF, at least, interprets the GPL.
Here are some other links to some sites with information about Open Source and free software licenses.
The Free Software Foundation (www.gnu.org)
The Open Source Initiative (www.opensource.org)
If you're interested in the soap opera that is the SCO vs. Everyone litigation, there's no better place to go than Groklaw.
This site isn't devoted to licensing issues, but www.slashdot.org is without a doubt the coolest place to keep up with happenings in the hacker community. More than just a news source, it's an interactive site where readers post (hundreds of) comments, many of them thoughtful, about each item. Slashdot is largely (though by no means entirely) focused on the Linux world, but there are also items about gaming, Sci Fi, electronic freedom issues, technology generally, and lots of other neat stuff. As Jerry Pournelle used to say when Byte was still a magazine, "Highly Recommended."