Software Licensing

Protection & Licensing of Computer Software

Copyrights

The Computer Software Copyright Act of 1980 provides that computer software, much like a book or musical recording, can be protected under the U.S. copyright laws. A software copyright gives the owner the right to exclude others from copying, modifying, or distributing the source code and object code. However, it only covers the literal code, not the ideas that underlie how the software works. Copyright registration is inexpensive and is the best way to define and identify the software. It is also easy to file additional registrations as the software evolves. The UMass Technology Transfer Office (TTO) can register a copyright for your software.

Patents

Patent protection is available for software concepts that are new and are not obvious. Algorithms themselves are not patentable, but their application to specific purposes may be. Often software patents are directed to computer systems, and usually contain block diagrams rather than computer code. Software patents are expensive and challenging for lawyers to get them allowed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, so most software is only protected by copyrights.

Ownership

Copyrights and patents on software developed by UMass employees are owned by UMass. However, UMass provides UMass software authors great latitude on how the software is distributed, whether by licensing to one or more companies in exchange for royalties, or by distributing the software widely at no cost under an Open-Source license, as explained below. Some Open-Source licenses exclude commercial rights, and allow separate commercial licensing, but most do not. UMass generally only seeks patent protection if the commercial licensing route is chosen. The TTO is experienced in negotiating commercial licenses, and any royalties or other revenues are shared with the inventors as personal income.

Open-Source Licensing

In the early days of computer software, there were many who believed that software should be openly and widely shared at no cost, which became known as the “Copyleft Movement.” In 1989 the Free Software Foundation published the General Public License (GPL), which was the first license to allow free copying, distribution, and modification of software, and to require that anyone making modifications to the software must make the modified software also available under the GPL license. It also required that both source code and object code be included. The GPL has been updated, and GPL3 is the current version.

Many Variations

There are many ways to distribute software, depending on your goals, which is why there are now over 100 different Open-Source licenses! The TTO will be glad to discuss your interests with you and help select an approach that meets your needs. Here we describe a few common ones that are often used by UMass software authors.

The Major Open Source Licenses

The 100 plus Open Source licenses sanctioned by the Open Source Initiative cover the range of options that exist between pure copyleft and permissive. The following six licenses represent over 85% of Open Source projects:

Permissive
The MIT License (25%)

You may use software without restriction, provided you maintain the original copyright notice and provide a copy of the license in your distributions
The most permissive, simplest, and most popular Open Source license

Apache License 2.0 (15%)

Similar in spirit to MIT License, but with some restrictions and clarifications
Explicit patent grant: Gives licensees a license to any patents necessary to run the software (MIT License only gives an implicit patent license)

The 3-Clause BSD License (6%)

Short like MIT. Explicitly allows redistribution, whereas MIT also explicitly allows copying, modification, merging, publishing, distribution, sublicensing and sale

Copyleft
GNU General Public License version 2 (GPL 2.0) (15%)

Derivative works must also be licensed under GPL 2.0, which requires that complete source code be distributed to licensees. For example, a derivative work comprising MIT License, GPL 2.0, and your own code would have to be released under GPL 2.0

GNU General Public License version 3 (GPL 3.0) (19%)

Same spirit as GPL 2.0, but updated to include new technical and legal developments and to address ambiguities with GPL 2.0
Allows Apache 2.0 work to be combined with GPL 3.0 and released under GPL 3.0 only
Explicit patent grant, whereas GPL 2.0 gave implicit patent grant

Weak Copyleft
GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1 (LGPL 2.1) (6%)

Applicable to libraries, non-LGPL works may link to LGPL libraries and be distributed under non-LGPL terms as long as the new work is not a derivative work
Like with GPL, the source code of the LGPL library must always remain open

Please keep in mind that although a simple permission can be provided by email, each of the open-source licenses requires a written contract to be included in the code as distributed, along with a copyright notice. The TTO can provide you with details on how to place it in the code and how to list the license in publications and software postings.