Software license

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Part of a series on
Legal aspects of computing

A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of

public domain
, in which case it is also not covered by copyright and, as a result, cannot be licensed.

A typical software license grants the

exclusive rights
under copyright.

Free and open Non-free
Public domain
Permissive license
(can be used in closed source s/w)		 Copyleft (protective license) Noncommercial license
Proprietary license
 Trade secret
Description Grants all rights Grants use rights, including right to relicense (allows
proprietization, license compatibility
)		 Grants use rights, forbids
proprietization
 Grants rights for noncommercial use only. May be combined with copyleft. Traditional use of copyright; no rights need be granted No information made public
Software PD,
CC0
Apache, MPL
, BSD
GPL, AGPL
 JRL, AFPL Proprietary software, no public license private, internal software
Other creative works PD,
CC0
CC BY
CC BY-SA
CC BY-NC
 Copyright, no public license unpublished

Software licenses and copyright law

Most distributed software can be categorized according to its license type (see table).

Two common categories for software under copyright law, and therefore with licenses which grant the

closed source
").

In addition to granting rights and imposing restrictions on the use of copyrighted software, software licenses typically contain provisions which allocate liability and responsibility between the parties entering into the. In enterprise and commercial software transactions, these terms often include limitations of liability, warranties and warranty disclaimers, and indemnity if the software infringes intellectual property rights of anyone.

Unlicensed software outside the scope of copyright protection is either

CC0 or WTFPL.[6]

Software licenses and rights granted in context of the copyright according to Mark Webbink.[2] Expanded by freeware and sublicensing.
Rights granted
Public domain
BSD license
)
GPL
) 		Freeware / Shareware / Freemium Proprietary license Trade secret
Copyright retained No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Right to perform Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Right to display Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
Right to copy Yes Yes Yes Often No Lawsuits are filed by the owner against copyright infringement the most
Right to modify
 Yes Yes Yes No No No
Right to distribute Yes Yes, under same license Yes, under same license Often No No
Right to sublicense Yes Yes No No No No
Example software SQLite, ImageJ
ToyBox
OBS
Irfanview, Winamp
Windows, the majority of commercial video games and their DRMs, Spotify, xSplit, TIDAL
 Server-side
Cloud computing programs and services,
forensic applications, and other line-of-business work.

Ownership vs. licensing

Many

ownership of the good to the user, who does not have the warranty of a for-life availability of the software, nor are they entitled to sell, rent, give it to someone, copy or redistribute it on the Web. License terms and conditions may specify further legal clauses that users cannot negotiate individually or by way of a consumer organization, and can uniquely accept or refuse, returning the product back to the vendor.[7] This right can be effectively applied where the jurisdiction provides a mandatory time for the good decline right after the purchase (as in the European Union law
), or a mandatory public advertisement of the license terms, so as to be made readable by users before their purchasing.

In the United States, Section 117 of the Copyright Act gives the owner of a particular copy of software the explicit right to use the software with a computer, even if use of the software with a computer requires the making of incidental copies or adaptations (acts which could otherwise potentially constitute copyright infringement). Therefore, the owner of a copy of computer software is legally entitled to use that copy of software. Hence, if the end-user of software is the owner of the respective copy, then the end-user may legally use the software without a license from the software publisher.

As many proprietary "licenses" only enumerate the rights that the user already has under

UMG v. Augusto[8] or Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc.[9][10]

The ownership of

EU Directive 2009/24/EC expressly permits trading used computer programs.[19]

Proprietary software licenses

Further information: Proprietary software
See also: End-user license agreement

The hallmark of proprietary software licenses is that the software publisher grants the use of one or more copies of software under the end-user license agreement (EULA), but ownership of those copies remains with the software publisher (hence use of the term "proprietary"). This feature of proprietary software licenses means that certain rights regarding the software are reserved by the software publisher. Therefore, it is typical of EULAs to include terms which define the uses of the software, such as the number of installations allowed or the terms of distribution.

The most significant effect of this form of licensing is that, if ownership of the software remains with the software publisher, then the end-user must accept the software license. In other words, without acceptance of the license, the end-user may not use the software at all. One example of such a proprietary software license is the license for Microsoft Windows. As is usually the case with proprietary software licenses, this license contains an extensive list of activities which are restricted, such as: reverse engineering, simultaneous use of the software by multiple users, and publication of benchmarks or performance tests.

There are numerous types of licensing models, varying from simple perpetual licenses and floating licenses (also known as concurrent licenses) to more advanced models such as the metered license. The most common licensing models are per single user (named user, client, node) or per user in the appropriate volume discount level, while some manufacturers accumulate existing licenses. These open volume licensing programs are typically called open license program (OLP), transactional license program (TLP), volume license program (VLP) etc. and are contrary to the contractual license program (CLP), where the customer commits to purchase a certain number of licenses over a fixed period (mostly two years). Licensing per concurrent/floating user also occurs, where all users in a network have access to the program, but only a specific number at the same time. Another license model is licensing per dongle, which allows the owner of the dongle to use the program on any computer. Licensing per server, CPU or points, regardless the number of users, is common practice, as well as site or company licenses. Sometimes one can choose between perpetual (permanent) and annual license. For perpetual licenses, one year of maintenance is often required, but maintenance (subscription) renewals are discounted. For annual licenses, there is no renewal; a new license must be purchased after expiration. Licensing can be host/client (or guest), mailbox, IP address, domain etc., depending on how the program is used. Additional users are inter alia licensed per extension pack (e.g. up to 99 users), which includes the base pack (e.g. 5 users). Some programs are modular, so one will have to buy a base product before they can use other modules.[20]

Software licensing often also includes maintenance. This, usually with a term of one year, is either included or optional, but must often be bought with the software. The maintenance agreement (contract) typically contains a clause that allows the licensee to receive minor updates (V.1.1 => 1.2), and sometimes major updates (V.1.2 => 2.0). This option is usually called update insurance or upgrade assurance. For a major update, the customer has to buy an upgrade, if it is not included in the maintenance agreement. For a maintenance renewal, some manufacturers charge a reinstatement (reinstallment) fee retroactively per month, in the event that the current maintenance has expired.

Maintenance sometimes includes technical support. When it does, the level of technical support, which are commonly named gold, silver and bronze, can vary depending on the communication method (i.e. e-mail versus telephone support), availability (e.g. 5x8, 5 days a week, 8 hours a day) and reaction time (e.g. three hours). Support is also licensed per incident as an incident pack (e.g. five support incidents per year).[20]

Many manufacturers offer special conditions for schools and government agencies (EDU/GOV license). Migration from another product (crossgrade), even from a different manufacturer (competitive upgrade) is offered.[20]

Free and open-source software licenses

orthogonal, "free download" (Freeware
).
Main articles:
Open source software license

There are several organizations in the FOSS domain who give out guidelines and definitions regarding software licenses. Free Software Foundation maintains non-exhaustive lists of software licenses following their The Free Software Definition and licenses which the FSF considers non-free for various reasons.[21] The FSF distinguishes additionally between free software licenses that are compatible or incompatible with the FSF license of choice, the copyleft GNU General Public License. The Open Source Initiative defines a list of certified open-source licenses following their The Open Source Definition.[22] Also the Debian project has a list of licenses which follow their Debian Free Software Guidelines.[23]

Free and open-source licenses are commonly classified into two categories: Those with the aim to have minimal requirements about how the software can be redistributed (

permissive licenses), and the protective share-alike (copyleft Licenses
).

An example of a copyleft free software license is the often used GNU General Public License (GPL), also the first copyleft license. This license is aimed at giving and protecting all users unlimited freedom to use, study, and privately modify the software, and if the user adheres to the terms and conditions of the GPL, freedom to redistribute the software or any modifications to it. For instance, any modifications made and redistributed by the end-user must include the source code for these, and the license of any derivative work must not put any additional restrictions beyond what the GPL allows.[24]

Examples of

MIT license, which give unlimited permission to use, study, and privately modify the software, and includes only minimal requirements on redistribution. This gives a user the permission to take the code and use it as part of closed-source software or software released under a proprietary software
license.

It was under debate some time if

Ninth circuit decisions.[27]

See also

References

  1. ^ Hancock, Terry (2008-08-29). "What if copyright didn't apply to binary executables?". Free Software Magazine. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
  2. ^
    Nashville. redhat.com. p. 10. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 2014-01-22. Retrieved 2015-12-29.
  3. ^ Pick a License, Any License on codinghorror by Jeff Atwood
  4. ^ github-finally-takes-open-source-licenses-seriously on infoworld.com by Simon Phipps (July 13, 2013)
  5. ^ Post open source software, licensing and GitHub on opensource.com by Richard Fontana (13 Aug 2013)
  6. Berlin, Germany
  7. Allbusiness.com. Archived
    from the original on 22 May 2015.
  8. ^ "UMG v. Augusto". January 28, 2009.
  9. ^ "Court smacks Autodesk, affirms right to sell used software". Ars Technica. May 23, 2008.
  10. ^ "Vernor v. Autodesk". 2007-11-14.
  11. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    . Retrieved 2014-12-27. I asked gamer lawyer Jas Purewal about this a short while back, not specifically about Valve, and he explained that the matter is still unresolved. "In fact," he says, "it's never been completely resolved for software generally[...]"
  12. gamasutra.com
    )
  13. dw.de
    . Retrieved 2014-12-30. A European court has ruled that it's permissible to resell software licenses even if the package has been downloaded directly from the Internet. It sided with a German firm in its legal battle with US giant Oracle.
  14. forbes.com
    . Retrieved 2014-12-30. Could this be the victory we need for a "gamer's bill of rights" ? DRM is an oft-cited acronym, and resonates negatively in the gaming community. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in favor of reselling downloaded games. Simply put, legally purchased and downloaded games will be treated like physical copies of the game, and consumers can then sell their 'used' game.
  15. ^ "JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Grand Chamber)". InfoCuria – Case-law of the Court of Justice. 2012-07-03. Retrieved 2014-12-30. (Legal protection of computer programs — Marketing of used licenses for computer programs downloaded from the internet — Directive 2009/24/EC — Articles 4(2) and 5(1) — Exhaustion of the distribution right — Concept of lawful acquirer)
  16. ^ Timothy B. Lee (2012-07-03). "Top EU court upholds right to resell downloaded software". Ars Technica.
  17. ^ "EU Court OKs Resale of Software Licenses". AP.
  18. ^ "ecj-usedsoft-ruling". Archived from the original on 2018-09-14. Retrieved 2018-03-21.
  19. ^ Directive 2009/24/EC of the European Parliament and the Council. Official Journal of the European Union Accessed on 14 March 2014.
  20. ^ a b c Scholten, Thomas. "Software Licensing". Retrieved 21 May 2012.
  21. ^ License list – Free Software Foundation
  22. ^ Open Source Licenses by Category on opensource.org
  23. ^ DFSGLicenses on debian.org
  24. ^ "The GNU General Public License v3.0 – GNU Project – Free Software Foundation (FSF)". fsf.org. Retrieved 24 March 2010.
  25. ^ Lawrence Rosen (2004-05-25). "Why the public domain isn't a license". rosenlaw.com. Retrieved 2016-02-22.
  26. ^ Placing documents into the public domain by Daniel J. Bernstein on cr.yp.to "Most rights can be voluntarily abandoned ("waived") by the owner of the rights. Legislators can go to extra effort to create rights that can't be abandoned, but usually they don't do this. In particular, you can voluntarily abandon your United States copyrights: "It is well settled that rights gained under the Copyright Act may be abandoned. But abandonment of a right must be manifested by some overt act indicating an intention to abandon that right. See Hampton v. Paramount Pictures Corp., 279 F.2d 100, 104 (9th Cir. 1960)."" (2004)
  27. ^ Lawrence Rosen (2012-03-08). "(License-review) (License-discuss) CC0 incompliant with OSD on patents, (was: MXM compared to CC0)". opensource.org. Archived from the original on 2016-03-12. The case you referenced in your email, Hampton v. Paramount Pictures, 279 F.2d 100 (9th Cir. Cal. 1960), stands for the proposition that, at least in the Ninth Circuit, a person can indeed abandon his copyrights (counter to what I wrote in my article) -- but it takes the equivalent of a manifest license to do so. :-)[...] For the record, I have already voted +1 to approve the CC0 public domain dedication and fallback license as OSD compliant. I admit that I have argued for years against the "public domain" as an open source license, but in retrospect, considering the minimal risk to developers and users relying on such software and the evident popularity of that "license", I changed my mind. One can't stand in the way of a fire hose of free public domain software, even if it doesn't come with a better FOSS license that I trust more.

External links

Wikibooks has a book on the topic of: FOSS Licensing
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