QUESTION
A business website built with gpl software
Asked on Nov 13th, 2013 on Intellectual Property - Minnesota
More details to this question:
I am confused about the responsibility of a site owner who builds his site with open source software licensed through the GPL, although of course there are many other open source or copyleft licenses out there. Here is the language from gpl 2 I am concerned about: "2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it ¿provided that you also ¿ cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License." That sounds to me like if I take some open source CMS licensed this way, and build an e-commerce site with it, that I have no protection for any code changes I make, including design templates. Therefore, I have zero competitive advantage because I am compelled to share all my innovations with the whole world. Now, that can't be the right interpretation, but that's what I see here. Please explain.
1 ANSWER
Intellectual Property Attorney serving Manchester, NH
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That is the idea. The basic concept is that, if the open source software creators are making their work non-proprietary, they want your uses to be non-proprietary as well. You'd have to review the full terms of the license to determine what, if anything, the software creators did wish to control as proprietary, but the quoted language cuts a broad swath.
Answered on Nov 13th, 2013 at 9:07 AM