WHAT CAN I DO WITH THAT CODE?: UNDERSTANDING OPEN SOURCE LICENSES

Lillian Rigling@lilyrglg

Will Cross@tceles_B_hsup

Nushrat Khan@brishti55

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So what’s a license anyways?

(and why should I care?)

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≠ OPEN

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≠ OPEN+

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=OPEN+ Open License

So Many Licenses!

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Easy, Right?

Basic Terms and Issues: Free as in . . .

Free/Copyleft

“Share and Share Alike”

Permissive

“Use It However You Like”

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Under the Hood

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Basic Terms: How Can I Share & Combine?

Linking - Can I link this code in a library with code under a different license?

Distribution - Can I share this code with a third party?

Modification - Can I change this code, or just re-use as-is?

Private Use - Must I share my modifications with the public?

Sublicensing - Can I share my modified code under a different license?

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Under the Hood

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Spread the Word

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Basic Terms: What Can I Use and What Must I Let Other People Use?

Patent Grant - Protection from patent claims

Trademark Grant - Use trademarks to describe the source of the code

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GO NUTS!

What About the Other Stuff?

● Readme files ● Web content like videos or images● Data ● Other non-code stuff

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Legalese: Wait, What?

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Basic Questions

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Overlaps and Differences

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How do I know what to do?Where do I find licenses?

Simply look for the word “license” in the documentation

Open source softwares that are published on GitHub should have the license that is released under mentioned in the documentation (README.md or LICENSE.txtfile)

Quick Search software released by NCSU Libraries under MIT License

Swift from Apple is using Apache license to release their code 23

Case Studies: Choosing the Right License

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“Come in we're open source” Josh French CC-BY-SA

Student or Freelance Coder

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How does my license work with other licenses?

How can more people see my work?

Software Development in Libraries

North Carolina State University’s Office of Technology Commercialization and New Ventures licenses research discoveries to industry, including software. As the NCSU Libraries’ software does not have commercial value, we have been allowed to apply an MIT License to our open source software. Because the Apache License explicitly expresses a grant of patent license, campus council preferred us applying licenses like the MIT License that makes no grant of patent license.

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Let’s Make Some Money!

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Let’s Talk About You!

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What If I Forget?Some useful resources to read and learn about different open source licenses and their applications

● Choose an Open Source Licence (curated by GitHub)● Open Source Initiative - Licenses and Standards ● TL;DR Legal (crowd-sourced license breakdowns)

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