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OSS LICENS



Disclaimers

DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.

U.S. GOVERNMENT DISCLAIMER NOTICE. The views expressed in this presentation are thothe author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. The information appearing on thispresentation is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal ato any individual or entity. Please consult with your own legal advisor before taking any actibased on information appearing in this presentation or any sources to which it may cite.

UNLESS OTHERWISE STATED



Who is this guy?

MARCUS A. STREIPSAttorney-Advisor (Intellectual Property)

United States Army Medical Research & Materiel Comman

Fort Detrick, MD



Why are we here?OSEHRA Mission

“BUILD and SUPPORT an OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY of users, developers,service providers, and researchers engaged in advancing electronic health recosoftware and related health information technology.”OSEHRA’s mission includthe creation of a VENDOR-NEUTRALcommunity for the creation, evolution,promotion and support of an open source Electronic Health Record (EHR). Thiscommunity will operate with the TRANSPARENCY and AGILITY that characteopen source software initiatives. This entails not only the development of a

community of software experts, clinicians, and implementers, but also a robusecosystem of complementary products, capabilities and services. OSEHRA is service organization. In one sense, our “product” is a thriving open source EHRcommunity. However, a more practical description of our products would list tservices OSEHRA provides to SUPPORT that community, such as our softwarerepository, testing, certification, and working group support. ”



Why are we here?

• BUILD

• SUPPORT

• TRANSPARENT

• AGILE

• VENDER-NEUTRAL

• OPEN SOURCE

• COMMUNITY

OSEHRA Mission (Abridged)



Open Source Principles1. Innovation comes from the outside. It must be channeled inside.

2. Software is knowledge transformed into code. It needs an engaged C

3. Software is never a finished product. Its evolution requires an involve

4. Attract interested people with shared goals. Earn their trust.

5. Transparency: remove any obstacles to the free flow of information

6. Meritocratic governance driven by: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose

7. Release Early, Release Often.8. Avoid Private Discussions.

9. Establish Credibility. Build relationships with Open Source Communit

10.Welcome the unexpected. Listen carefully to the Community.

SOURCE: http://osehra.org/sites/default/files/osehra_licensing_terms_v.1.0.pdf

http://osehra.org/sites/default/files/osehra_licensing_terms_v.1.0.pdf




How do we make that happen?

1. Open Source Ecosystem: Patents, Data, Standards and S

2. Open Source Software (OSS) Licenses Overview

3. OSS Compatibility: Aggregation, Integration, Linking

4. “Don’t Do it Yourself (DIYs)”: OSS Best Practices




Part I: Open Source Ecosystem:Patents, Data, Standards and Software



OSEHRA System Architecture

SOURCE: http://architecture.osehra.org/




SOURCE: http://architecture.osehra.org/

• Data & Do• Standards• Software

• Architectu

• Patents



Licensing Landscape

SOURCE: http://www.acq.osd.mil/log/mr/psm/09_technical_data_rights_acquisition_strategy_guertin_2nov2011_v2

http://www.acq.osd.mil/log/mr/psm/09_technical_data_rights_acquisition_strategy_guertin_2nov2011_v2.pdf






Patents

Standards

(copyrights)

Data

(data rights)

Software(copyrights)




Patents

Standards

(copyrights)

Data

(data rights)




Defn. Patent • Intangible Property

• Concepts & Ideas

• Social Contract

• Hedge against risk

• Inventive concept covering “Anything under the Sun”

• NOT laws of nature, natural phenomena or abstract idea

• Government sanctioned monopoly to make, use, sell, import

• 20 years from earliest effective filing date



Patents and OSS

• VERY IMPORTANT to keep patents out of OSS code

• Restrict software use and distribution

• Undermine emergence of a commercial marketplace

•

Raise suspicion of costly litigation• Goes against principles of vendor-neutrality, agility and com






Patent Reciprocity and Open Standa

“Most users of software probably don’t realize how integral industry standards are business and financial applications, nor how disruptive it might be to them if the stsuddenly became more expensive or less available.”

Open standards should be made available under reasonable reciprocal licenses th

require licensees to share under the same terms their own patent claims reading o

standard, or the standard should not be called open.

SOURCE: http://www.rosenlaw.com/pdf-files/DefiningOpenStandards.pdfCopyright 2013 Lawrence Rosen. Licensed under the Open Software License version 3.0 (“OSL 3.0”)




• Create a common pool of patent claims that are available for all who share the stan

• Condition reciprocity for participation in the standards process

• Condition reciprocity for commercial distribution of software that implements the s

• Explicit in license conditions

• Implicit through defensive termination provisions

•

Covenants not to sue (Sun/Microsoft XML standard) – but see Microsoft's Open Specification Profor GPL, Copyright 2008, Software Freedom Law Center licensed under licensed CC-BY-SA 3.0.

SOURCE: http://www.rosenlaw.com/pdf-files/DefiningOpenStandards.pdfCopyright 2013 Lawrence Rosen. Licensed under the Open Software License version 3.0 (“OSL 3.0”)

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/legalcode






SOURCE: http://www.hl7.org/legal/patentinfo.cfmCopyright 2007-2013 Health Level Seven Internatio

OSEHRA S t A hit t




Patents

Standards

(copyrights)

Data

(data rights)




C i ht



CopyrightsA Little History:

The earliest recorded historical case-law on the right to copy comes from ancient Ireland. The

earliest example of Irish writing. Around 560 AD St. Columba copied it from St. Finnian causincontroversy that precipitated the Battle of Cúl Dreimhne in 561 AD (3000 dead).

King Diarmait Mac Cerbhaill gave the judgment :

"To every cow belongs her calf, therefore to every book becopy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CathachOfStColumba.jpg



Copyright and Open Systems

•

Standards (HL7, ISO)• Data/Databases (US vs. EU/AU/CA)

• Schema

• Documentation

• Design Concepts/GUI/Trade Dress

• Software



Defn. Open Work (Knowledge/Data/Content/S

SOURCE: http://opendefinition.org/okd/

1. Access Agile

2. Redistribution Vendor-Neutral

3. Reuse Agile

4. Absence of Technological Restriction Transparent

5. Attribution Agile

6. Integrity Agile

7. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups Vendor-Neutral

8. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor Agile/Vendor-Neu

9. Distribution of License Agile

10. License must NOT be Specific to a Package Agile/Vendor Neu

11. License must NOT Restrict the Distribution of Other Works Agile

See Also: upcoming lecture: “Open Data”Dr. Fr



Open Work Conformant License


SOURCE: http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/



Open Work Conformant License

SOURCE http://creativecommons.org/choose/



Open Work NON-Conformant Lice

SOURCE http://opendefinition.org/licenses/nonconformant/

G D Ri h



Government Data Rights

SOURCE: http://www.acq.osd.mil/log/mr/psm/09_technical_data_rights_acquisition_strategy_guertin_2nov2011_v2.p







Patents

Standards

(copyrights)

Data

(data rights)




Open Standards Requirement of

• Users of open standards aren’t locked into a particular implementation.

• Easily switch to a different implementation – Proprietary/FLOSS implemen

• The standard itself helps developers know what to do.

SOURCE: http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/open-standards-open-source.html Copyright 2013 David A. Wheeler and licensed under the Creative Commons “Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 LicensDocumentation License; or the GNU GPL (version 2 or later)

Open standards aid FLOSS projects, and it’s not hard to see why:

http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/open-standards-open-source.html





1. No Intentional Secrets Transparent

2. Availability Agile/Vendor-Ne

3. Patents Vendor-Neutral

4. No Agreements Agile/Transparen

5. Attribution Agile

6. No OSR-Incompatible Dependencies Agile/Vendor-Ne





SOURCE: http://www.hl7.org/documentcenter/public_temp_B65E8487-1C23-BA17-0CA344F46F3417A2/pressreleases/HCopyright 2013 Health Level Seven International


http://www.hl7.org/documentcenter/public_temp_B65E8487-1C23-BA17-0CA344F46F3417A2/pressreleases/HL7_PRESS_20120904.pdf





Patents

Standards

(copyrights)

Data

(data rights)





Part II: Open Source Software (O

Licenses Overview

f f



A Defn. Open Source Software

SOURCE: http://opensource.org/osd

See Also: http://osehra.org/sites/default/files/osehra_licensing_terms_v.1.0.pdf

See Also: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

1. Free Redistribution Vendor-Neutral

2. Source Code Transparent

3. Derived Works Agile

4. Integrity of the Author’s Source Code Agile

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups Vendor-Neutral

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavors Agile/Vendor-Neu

7. Distribution of License Agile

8. License Must Not be Specific to A Product Agile

9. License Must Not Restrict other Software Agile

10. License Must be Technology-Neutral Vendor-Neutral

OSS Li C t





OSS License Category

SOURCE: http://flosscc.opensource.org/content/spread-the-word content on this site is licensed under a Creative Common

3 Types of Licenses

1. Reciprocal (aka “Viral”, “Copyleft”, “Restrictive”)

- if you change the code and redistribute it, you must alsoredistribute the source code; the code will remain open source.- all code linked to the code with a reciprocal license must remainwith the same reciprocal license

2. Partially Reciprocal (“Weak Copyleft”)- similar to the reciprocal but you can distribute a singe componentof your code with this license and link it to code with other license

(even proprietary)

3. Academic (aka “Commercial Friendly”, “Permissive”)- you may relicense your derivative work under any license of yourchoice, or even make it proprietary

OSS Li C t

http://flosscc.opensource.org/content/spread-the-word

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/






SOURCE: http://flosscc.opensource.org/content/spread-the-word content on this site is licensed under a Creative Common

Popular and Widely Used License

1. Reciprocal (aka “Viral”, “Copyleft”, “Restrictive”)

- GNU General Public License (GPL)

2. Partially Reciprocal (“Weak Copyleft”)- Eclipse Public License (EPL)- GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)- Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL)

3. Academic (aka “Commercial Friendly”, “Permissive”)- Apache License 2.0- BSD- MIT License

OSS Li C t








SOURCE : http://www.openfoundry.org/en/foss-license-category

OSS Li C t

http://www.openfoundry.org/en/foss-license-category





SOURCE : http://www.openfoundry.org/en/comparison-of-licenses



Rank of OSS Licenses by Popularity



Rank of OSS Licenses by Popularity

SOURCE: http://osrc.blackducksoftware.com/data/licenses/ Copyright 2013 Black Duck Software,. Inc

SOURCE: http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/open_source_license_Copyright 2011 John T. Haller

http://osrc.blackducksoftware.com/data/licenses/

http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/open_source_license_popularity/






BSD/MIT (“Commercial Friendly”, “Permissive”)

• The code is protected by copyright.

• code can be used in closed source projects.

• The code can be included in project with more restrictive licenses.

• The program that used this can be sold and licensed commercially.

• Derivative works need NOT be released (non-reciprocal).

• There is implicit permission to exercise patents.

• A number of terms that are left unspecified.







GPL 3.0 (“Viral”, “Copyleft”, “Restrictive”)

• “Viral” because the licenses spreads a continuing use of the licenses in its derivatives.

• The code can be sold and licensed commercially as long as the source code is under the

• Derivative works, when distributed, must be distributed under the same license (recipr

• Does not require you to release your modified version, or any part of it.

• Patent permissions are included more strongly than GPL 2.0.

• Hardware devices must allow modified versions to run.

• Prevents the practice of applying restrictive licenses to modifications of original source

• May NOT be distributed under any other license. Keep code “free forever”.








GPL 3.0 (“Viral”, “Copyleft”, “Restrictive”)

SOURCE: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/pick-a-license-any-license.html© 2013 Jeff Atwood.

“The archetypal bearded, sandal-clad free software

license. Your code can never be used in any

proprietary program, ever! Take that, capitalism!”


https://profiles.google.com/codinghorror1

https://profiles.google.com/codinghorror1




LGPL (“Lesser Copyleft”)

• The code is protected by copyright.

• Considered “halfway” point between “restrictive” and “permissive” licenses

• Allows combination with proprietary closed-source software impermissible under GPL

• Does not extend to LGPL license to works that link against the original code.

• Originally written to accommodate code libraries

Source: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/foss-primer.pdf Copyright © 2006, 2007, 2008, Software Freedom Law Center, Inc. Verbatim copying anddistribution of this entire document is permitted in any medium; however, this notice must bepreserved on all copies.

H d k th t h ?

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/foss-primer.pdf





Part III: OSS Compatibility:Aggregation, Integration, Linkin



OSS A ti



OSS Aggregation

An "aggregate" consists of a number of separate programs, distributed

together on the same CD-ROM or other media. The GPL permits you to create

and distribute an aggregate, even when the licenses of the other software are

non-free or GPL-incompatible. The only condition is that you cannot release

the aggregate under a license that prohibits users from exercising rights that

each program's individual license would grant them.

SOURCE: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation Copyright © 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License

OSS I t ti

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/





OSS Integration

SOURCE: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation Copyright © 2007, 2008, 2010, 2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc.Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License

“If you integrate module Q, and release the combined program P+Q under the GPL,that means any part of P+Q can be used under the GPL.”

P : GPL Code

Q: Your Code

P+Q = P+Q = P = Q

OSS Linking







gThe Problem of “Derivative Works”

SOURCE: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366Copyright © 1994 – 2013 Linux Journal.

The Copyright Act, at 17 U.S.C. §101, is a little vague and doesn't say anything atall about software:

A “derivative work” is a work based upon one or more pre-existing works, suchas a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motionpicture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensationor any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed or adapted. Awork consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations or othermodifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship, is a“derivative work”.

OSS Linking



OSS Linking

SOURCE: http://www.cs.binghamton.edu See Also: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LGPLStaticVsDynamic

OSS Linking

http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/




OSS Linking

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Linking_and_derived_worText is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License;

1. Dynamic and static linking violate GPL (FSF, LGPL, Stallman)

2. Static linking violates GPL but unclear as to dynamic linking (Torvalds,

3. Linking is does not automatically create a derivative work (OSI, Rosen)

Point of view:

OSS License Compatibility

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License




OSS License Compatibility

SOURCE : http://www.openfoundry.org/en/compatibility-of-licenses

Here the term “compatibility” refers to the two followingconditions:

1. When a software developer makes use of more than oneexternal module in the development of a single project, andwhen the licenses of used modules do not conflict with eachother, we say these licenses are compatible with each other.

2. When a software developer modifies a given program, andthe modified part makes use of other modules; when the

licenses of the modules do not conflict with the license of themodified program, we say the licenses are compatible witheach other.

OSS Compatibility

http://www.openfoundry.org/en/compatibility-of-licenses




OSS Compatibility

SOURCE: http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/floss-license-slide.pdf Copyright 2013 David A. Wheeler and licensed under the Creative Commons “Attribution-Share Alike 3.0License”; the GNU Free Documentation License; or the GNU GPL (version 2 or later)

OSS Compatibility

http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/floss-license-slide.pdf






OSS Compatibility

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Linking_and_derived_woText is available under the CC-BY-SA-3.0; Released under the GNU Free Documentation License

So which one?


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/GNU_Free_Documentation_License




So which one?

Apache License 2.0








Part IV: “Don’t Do it Yourself (DIOSS Best Practices

OSHERA OSS Key Features



y

1. Allow use in non-open source code (no reciprocity condition in license)

2. No licensing royalties

3. No Dual Licensing

4. Maximize business model diversity

5. Encourage, but NOT require contribution of improvements and modification

6. Allow for project forking, but AVOID it

7. Share maintenance cost of code base


Don’t “DIYs”





Don t DIYs

•

A GRAM license makes user and developer adoption quicker and easier.• A GRAM license has substantial licensing knowledge and support.

• Many GRAM licenses are shepherded by professional organizations (e.g., FSF, O

• Developers have a understanding and consensus of how the GRAM license mode

• Too many different licenses makes it difficult for licensors to choose

• License compatibility is a complex issue

• Multi-License distributions are complex and hard to understand

SOURCE: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/foss-primer.pdf SOURCE: http://opensource.org/proliferation-reportall content licensed CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Pick Generally Recognized as Mature (GRAM) Licenses:

Don’t “DIYs”







Don t DIYs

The OSEHRA will only consider existing OSI-Approved licenses. There is already

variety of open source licenses to satisfy most common licensing situations. The O

Source Initiative repeatedly discourages projects from creating new licenses. The e

devising a new license will drain a significant amount of resources and distract the

from more pressing issues while providing no benefit for the open source stance o

project at large.






Discouraged Practices



Discouraged Practices

• Continuous tension and fractioning of the Community

• Forking of the project into diverging branches (beyond experimental and explorato

• Litigation and uncertainty on potential future litigation

• Entrenchment of the software and use of it by only a small niche of users

• Unbalanced influence on the software by a small fraction of actors in the ecosystem






FIN

Sources



Sourceshttp://osehra.org/sites/default/files/osehra_licensing_terms_v.1.0.pdf http://architecture.osehra.org http://www.acq.osd.mil/log/mr/psm/09_technical_data_rights_acquisition_strategy_guertin_2nov2011_v2.pdf http://www.rosenlaw.com/pdf-files/DefiningOpenStandards.pdf http://www.hl7.org/legal/patentinfo.cfm http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm http://opendefinition.org/okd http://opendatacommons.org/licenses http://creativecommons.org/choose http://opendefinition.org/licenses/nonconformant/ http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/open-standards-open-source.html http://www.hl7.org/documentcenter/public_temp_B65E8487-1C23-BA17-0CA344F46F3417A2/pressreleases/HL7_http://opensource.org/osd http://osehra.org/sites/default/files/osehra_licensing_terms_v.1.0.pdf http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html http://flosscc.opensource.org/content/spread-the-word http://www.openfoundry.org/en/foss-license-category http://www.openfoundry.org/en/comparison-of-licenses

Sources (cont )


http://architecture.osehra.org/


http://www.rosenlaw.com/pdf-files/DefiningOpenStandards.pdf

http://www.hl7.org/legal/patentinfo.cfm

http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm

http://opendefinition.org/okd

http://opendatacommons.org/licenses

http://creativecommons.org/choose

http://opendefinition.org/licenses/nonconformant/



http://opensource.org/osd


http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html



http://www.openfoundry.org/en/comparison-of-licenses

http://www.openfoundry.org/en/comparison-of-licenses



http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html


http://opensource.org/osd



http://opendefinition.org/licenses/nonconformant/

http://creativecommons.org/choose

http://opendatacommons.org/licenses

http://opendefinition.org/okd

http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm

http://www.hl7.org/legal/patentinfo.cfm

http://www.rosenlaw.com/pdf-files/DefiningOpenStandards.pdf


http://architecture.osehra.org/




Sources (cont.)http://www.openfoundry.org/LicenseWizard/index.htm?en http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/floss http://osrc.blackducksoftware.com/data/licenses/ http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/open_source_license_popularity http://www.openlogic.com/news/bid/154646/OpenLogic-Scanning-Data-Reveals-OSS-Developers-Choose-GPL-Ehttp://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/pick-a-license-any-license.html http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/foss-primer.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Linking_and_derived_works http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366 http://www.cs.binghamton.edu http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LGPLStaticVsDynamic http://www.openfoundry.org/en/compatibility-of-licenses http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/floss-license-slide.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Linking_and_derived_works http://opensource.org/proliferation-report

http://www.openfoundry.org/LicenseWizard/index.htm?en

http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/floss



http://www.openlogic.com/news/bid/154646/OpenLogic-Scanning-Data-Reveals-OSS-Developers-Choose-GPL-Enterprises-Prefer-Apache

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/pick-a-license-any-license.html




http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366






http://opensource.org/proliferation-report

http://opensource.org/proliferation-report






http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366




http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/04/pick-a-license-any-license.html

http://www.openlogic.com/news/bid/154646/OpenLogic-Scanning-Data-Reveals-OSS-Developers-Choose-GPL-Enterprises-Prefer-Apache



http://home.ccil.org/~cowan/floss

http://www.openfoundry.org/LicenseWizard/index.htm?en

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