This unit has taught me a lot abut licenses and how impactful they are for open source contributions.
We covered different licensing concepts, such as copyright, copy left, public domain, layers of licensing, and analog vs digital.
A license can carry weight and authority, it is interesting to see it emerges from communities, an example used was copyleft, which started as a joke and became its own term. Which was covered more later on in the lecture.
They are important for open source as they allow for free modifications of software, this includes commercial reasons.
There are over 50 different types of licenses, which vary in requirements for derivative works.
We touched upon how all digital formats are copying the original work where analog is not.
The example used in the lecture was you can gift a physical book, read it, share it all in a completely unregulated fashion. However, when downloaded, a copy is in the RAM, therefore digital rights management has involvement as your rights differ, and this sort of activity is regulated.
Digital has made these procedures more controversial, not to mention how you tangle into other’s works to make your own. This impacts how creative you can get when it comes to open source, as it is not your decision and your work may not be seen as appropriate.
I learnt from the lecture that there are three layers of licences: legal code, human readable, and machine readable.
Copyleft, which began as a joke and merged into a form of licensing, grants your freedom. “Copyleft all wrongs reserved” is a popular phrase used. (Mustonen, 2003)
There are4 types of freedoms (freedom0-freedom3) which allow the same rights as those who created the works/original work.
If we discuss what exactly the 4 different types of freedoms are:
- Freedom to use the work (freedom 0)
- Freedom to study the work (freedom 1)
- Freedom to copy and share the work with others (freedom 2)
- Freedom to modify the work and freedom to distribute modified and therefore derivative works. (freedom 3)
Copy right is where you hold all the rights for your work, therefore those who try to copy it need to be regulated. If work is acquired by the muses or collectors then it is perceived this way instead of public domain.
Copyright has been used since the Netherlands and Britains’ early capitalism. It is useful for the capitalism system, where there are hierarchal developed economies. (Söderberg, 2002)
Third-party contributions come with their own copyrights, which impacts project decision making.
Public domain however involves creative work where no rights apply.
It is engrained in our culture to take precious works as inspiration for our own creativity or innovation. It can be used a guidelines or a template to our own creativity.
This impacts open source as those contributing won’t be able to fully innovate or express their interest in a certain part of a project as they aren’t granted the freedom to do so.
Certain resources were recommend throughout the lecture, in this particular instance one that stood out to me was choosealicense.com as it can aid user who are new to open source coding, such as myself, to better grasp what each type of license means and why it’s beneficial for each project.
My OS Project License:
My open source project I contributed to, einsteinPy, had an MIT license.
The MIT license is a popular method used in open source contributions as it doesn’t require a fee or signatures. There is not much that can go wrong as the user has permissive rights to license their own work as they please.(Open Source Guides, 2024)
There are 4 important guidelines for granting permission:
- Permission is granted for any purpose, including commercial use.
- Neither signed agreement nor license fee is required.
- Permission is subject to three restrictions:
- Any redistribution must credit MIT.
- Any redistribution must include the same copyright and permission notice.
- Promotional use of MIT’s name is restricted.
- The software is provided “as-is” without warranty.
(Wikipedia, 2020)
By einsteinPy using MIT license, the software is available free and open to any contributions. This licence promotes a diverse collaborative environment, encouraging constant improvements and added features.
This license is simple and easy to understand my rights and responsibilities as a new contributor myself, and can help broaden my understanding about contributing to open source code and its legal requirements.
In summary, this aligns well with my goals towards open source in a flexible, helpful and secure manner.
Overall, I had no previous knowledge about licenses, the lecture helped me understand which types of projects require which types o licenses and their reasoning behind this. This will benefit me when contributing to my chosen project, by understanding where my rights lie in comparison to the maintainer.
References:
Söderberg, J. (2002). Copyleft vs. Copyright: A Marxist Critique. First Monday, 7(3). doi:https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v7i3.938.
Open Source Guides. (2024). The Legal Side of Open Source. [online] Available at: https://opensource.guide/legal/#:~:text=If%20you%20don%27t%20apply [Accessed 9 Jun. 2024].
Wikipedia. (2020). MIT License. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_License.
Mustonen, M. (2003). Copyleft—the economics of Linux and other open source software. Information Economics and Policy, 15(1), pp.99–121. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/s0167-6245(02)00090-2.