GPL: GNU General Public License and Derivative Works

Speakers: Mikko Valimaki

Language: english

Where: Arena

When: Day 1, 15:00

Duration: 01:00h

Description

There are vast amounts of useful programming code available under GNU general public license today. Many programmers in companies and on their free-time use and contribute to different projects under GPL. However, this also means that there are legal risks with copyright infringement when GPL code is mixed with projects under other licenses. This presentation tackles the most central of them: the problem of derivative works under GPL. Recent cases such as MySQL vs. Nusphere have shown the importance of this issue.

The presentation shows how GPL is incompatible with proprietary and even with many other open source licenses. The terms of GPL cannot be fulfilled simultaneously with the terms of other licenses. One may say that GPL protects openness and at the same time one can say that GPL removes choice. There are many open source and free software licenses that avoid the legal interpretation problems and economic risks that come with the GPL. The presentation gives practical guidelines for developers to consider when using GPL d code in non-GPL projects and when contributing to a GPL d project.