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Legal Resources for Hackers
From PerlNet
Contents |
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Introduction
You're not a lawyer? Most open source programmers aren't. Yet it pays to be aware of the various legal, ethical and moral concepts behind Perl and Open Source Software in general. For good or for bad, our local and national laws affect us, and one will be much more effective by being aware of your legal situation.
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General
- Eric Sink - "Five Things Every Micro-ISV Should Know about Intellectual Property" - covers copyrights, trademarks, patents and licences.
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Understanding Licences
- "Open Source" Chapter from "The Art of Unix Programming" - an introduction to open source licensing and philosophy by Eric S. Raymond. Note that the Artistic License which he mentions may be problematic in its original version, and is often considered to be non-free. The Artistic License version 2.0 is much better in this respect.
- Free Software, Open Source and Other Beasts by Shlomi Fish - gives a good introduction to open source in general and among else covers the licencing.
- How to Pick an Open Source License (part 1) and How to Pick an Open Source License (part 2)
- The Free Software Foundation's Overview of the various software Licenses.
- Also see their Philosophy section.
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Software Patents
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Contracts
- [1] Suggested variations to employment contracts to allow employees to develop Open Source software without encumbrance from their employer, where there is no conflict of interest.
