Intellectual Property and Open Source: A Practical Guide to Protecting Code

As a software developer, it's almost a certainty that you either participate in or use open source software somewhere in your computing environment. But even though you may have the source code sitting in front of you, it doesn't mean you can anything you darn well please with it. Van Lindberg's book Intellectual Property and Open Source: A Practical Guide to Protecting Code does a very good job in presenting the intricacies of open source licensing in a way that won't automatically put a developer to sleep. Granted, there's still a lot of legal concepts to wade through, but in my opinion he hit the right mix between legalities and practicalities.

Contents: The Economic and Legal Foundations of Intellectual Property; The Patent Document; The Patent System; Copyright; Trademarks; Trade Secrets; Contracts and Licenses; The Economic and Legal Foundations of Open Source Software; So I Have An Idea...; Choosing A License; Accepting Patches and Contributions; Working With The GPL; Reverse Engineering; Incorporating As A Non-Profit
Appendices: Sample Proprietary Information Agreement (PIA); Open Source License List; Free Software License List; Fedora License List and GPL Compatibility; Public Domain Declaration; The Simplified BSD License; The Apache License, Version 2.0; The Mozilla Public License, Version 1.1; The GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 2.1; The GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 3; The GNU General Public License, Version 2, June 1991; The GNU General Public License, Version 3, June 2007; The Open Software License, Version 3.0
Index

Lindberg accomplishes a couple of purposes in this book. The first few chapters trace the history and general concepts of intellectual property law, such as patents and trade secrets. This is necessary, in that it lays the groundwork to be able to understand what part of your work may or may not be covered by intellectual property laws. While there are plenty of legal concepts and examples cited, he doesn't get so far down into the weeds as to make the material irrelevant to the target audience... technology professionals. The last half of the book then uses that foundation to talk specifically about open source software, licenses, and legal issues being faced today. And really, it's more complex than you'd think (but isn't *anything* legal overly complex?) Each of the licenses he covers has certain advantages and disadvantages that can make a significant impact on how you and others can use your software going forward. For instance, one license may allow the user to use it in any way they see fit, including using it in their own non-open source software. Other licenses actually force any software project using the open source code to also be bound by the same license, meaning that your work has to be made available in open source form to others. Based on what you plan on building and how you want to market it, this could make the difference between a thriving business or a ruinous lawsuit. And again, the writing is appropriate for the technology professional, not four year law students looking to become a partner and retire by the age of 40.

For anyone involved in creating an open-source project (or what they *think* an open source project should be), this should be essential reading. And if you've ever downloaded something from Sourceforge to include in one of your own projects, you also need to read this to clearly understand your rights and obligations. I know we techies would prefer to let other people figure out the legal stuff, but it's not worth it to have your next killer application idea bankrupt you in court...

The author is both a programmer and a lawyer. That combination means that this is the ideal book for programmers as he regularly uses programming concepts to illustrate legal issues.

I really enjoyed this. The writing style is clear and very readable while imparting a lot of knowledge. I particularly enjoyed the explanation of patent details and that he used a real patent (Amazon's 1-click) as the example. I also liked the explanations of the strengths and weaknesses of the various open source licensing options.

There's a lot more here: advice for employees and budding entrepreneurs , reverse engineering (with multiple examples of real life projects) and more.

The first 8 chapters of the book, covering some history and the current state of intellectual property law in the US - should be read by anyone writing code in the United States - whether they work with Open Source or not.

As already mentioned, the language and examples are very understandable. The author obviously 'gets' both sides of this issue and can communicate in a way that resonates with his target audience. I learned a lot just working through the introductory material.

If one does intend to work with, use or contribute to open source software, those portions of the book are indispensable. There is just a ton of great advice and information.

I knocked this out while on vacation last week. I don't know that I've ever read all the way through a book about law before. It was extremely informative but not a burden to read.

The content of the book is very useful information if you're involved with any sort of open source project. It covers pretty much any aspect of the law that could be relevant, patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, starting a non-profit organization, etc.

However, the author uses far too many contrived programming analogies to explain legal concepts. Many of them are very contrived (e.x. "this legal concepts has 3 components, x, y, and z, just like this programming concept has 3 components, a, b,c... see!?"). It's like the author thinks that legal concepts are incredibly difficult for non-lawyers to grasp, so he uses programming analogies to teach us dumb programmers about law. I feel like a kid being lectured to by adults.

I was lucky enough to see this book in draft form, and even before the final spit-and-polish touches, it was a pleasure to read. The author has a real gift for metaphor; almost every chapter is organized around a vivid, memorable concept. He compares the format of a patent document to the ELF file format; he uses the secret recipe for the Flaming Moe to talk about trade secrets. The result is an introduction to IP law that's unusually fun to read.

But the clarity and verve of the writing doesn't detract from the book's main goal: showing the reader how the IP system works and affects open source software. The author has exercised very good judgment in paring down an immensely complicated body of law into an approachable set of important principles. The reader gets the big picture overview, a clear understanding of the truly important details, and a good sense of what else is out there and how to find out more. This book doesn't try to be a definitive reference or a dumbed-down sketch. Instead, it hits the sweet spot in between: informative and readable.