Deadly Combinations : A Framework for Analyzing The GPL’s Viral Effect
Abstract
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is a popular movement that at first blush seems to be a win-win for everyone. Such “community source” projects offer an attractive alternative to buying licenses for proprietary software. The software is free to use and can be downloaded from the Internet. Second – and in stark contrast to most proprietary software – the source code for the software is freely available, allowing licensees to modify and adapt the software for a particular need. For the unwary software development organization, however, the infectious nature of community source licenses can make “free” software a costly option.
In this paper I argue that adaptations that combine community source licensed software with an organization’s own intellectual property can trigger “viral” terms of the community source licenses in unexpected ways. Those terms require public disclosure of the software’s source code, which in turn can erode or completely destroy the commercial value of intellectual property. I propose a model framework for analyzing software combinations to determine whether the viral terms are triggered, and illustrate that analysis against various technical combinations of community-sourced and proprietary software.