Martin von Willebrand's Blog

Links to my texts around the web plus some extras.

Posts Tagged ‘GPL

10 myyttiä avoimen lähdekoodin juridiikasta ja riskeistä

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Artikkeli: 10 myyttiä avoimen lähdekoodin juridiikasta ja riskeistä

Näkökulma: Artikkelin myytit on valittu ison organisaation ostajan näkökulmasta, joskin myytit ovat tätä yleisempiä.

A. Johdanto

Avoin lähdekoodi tietojärjestelmissä ei ole ihmeellinen tai uusi asia. Avoimen lähdekoodin hyödyntämisessä on kyse ohjelmistoista, siinä missä suljetun lähdekoodin hyödyntämisessäkin.

Avointa lähdekoodia ei tule kohdella kuin jotain erityistä ilmiötä, sitä tulee kohdella ohjelmistoina. Ohjelmistoja on hyviä ja huonoja ja niiden lisensiointi voi olla yritykselle sopivaa tai epäsopivaa. Tämä soveltuu sekä avoimiin että suljettuihin ohjelmistoihin. Yrityksen tulee katsoa yksittäisiä ohjelmistoja ja niiden soveltuvuutta yrityksen tarkoituksiin. Yrityksen ei yleensä ole järkevää lukittautua yhteen ohjelmistoon tai yhteen lisensiointimalliin.

Ohjelmistoja tulee arvioida samoin kriteerein, olivat ne avoimia tai suljettuja. Arvioinnissa ohjelmiston avoimuus on käyttäjäyritykselle käytännössä aina vain etu, sillä avoimen ohjelmiston arviointi on helpompaa ja lisenssien myöntämä käyttämis-, muuttamis- ja monistamisvapaus on etu. Read the rest of this entry »

Written by Martin von Willebrand

April 27, 2011 at 12:46 pm

Shattering 10 Open Source Myths

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I explained a number of typical misunderstandings on open source risks and legal questions at Open Solutions 2010 a couple of months ago. The paper (in Finnish) is available at the site and it explains not only the myths, but also the truths.

Written by Martin von Willebrand

December 11, 2010 at 9:45 pm

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A Description on GPL Reciprocity in Finnish

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IPRinfo published my article earlier this year on GPL reciprocity in Finnish.

IPRinfo is a magazine published by IPR University Center –  a department for IPR studies of a number of Finnish universities.

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July 1, 2010 at 10:16 pm

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Paris “GPL” case in IFOSSLR

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The second issue of IFOSSLR was published yesterday.

Due to my blog on the Paris GPL case, I was actually asked to write a case law report to IFOSSLR. It was also published now.

I had the chance to read in advance Richard Kemp’s article Towards Free/Libre Open Source Software (“FLOSS”) Governance in the Organisation and heartily recommend it due to its building block approach and many examples.

I also just finished reading Andrew Katz’ book review on Law and the Internet and it surely was professional, but it was also entertaining!

Glad to see the publication flourishg: I and Mikko-Pekka Partanen are proposing a new article on open source compliance and the practical legal conclusions used in reviewing packages and source code and their license compliance. This is based on our work with Validos and has also a purpose to make public (and therefore subject to criticism and improvement) the compliance methodology used by Validos.

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January 29, 2010 at 9:14 pm

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Recent Court Decision in Paris (referred as Paris GPL case)

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Last week many internet news sources noted a decision by the Appeal Court of Paris (Arstechnica, FSF France). The news was largely around “an important case on GPL license enforceability”. I learnt that it might not be so and decided to look at the decision (Cour d’Appel de Paris, Pôle 5, Chambre 10, no: 294, issued on 16 Septmeber 2009). I do not know any other details of the case, nor have I looked at anything else than the 8 page long decision.

It’s a contract dispute regarding an IT-project. EDU 4 had won a contract (in 2000) and agreed to deliver a software (solution) to AFPA. In a series of many turns the parties presented their latest claims to the appeal court in April 2009. Basically EDU 4 claimed not to have breached  the it-project contract and to be entitled to all payments and AFPA claimed breach of contract and that the vendor was not entitled to any more payments and that early termination of the contract was justified. Read the rest of this entry »

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October 1, 2009 at 3:41 pm

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