If I develop a unique software using an open source software, do I have all rights to protect my Intellectual Property?
I dont know, if this is the right place to ask this question. But kindly answer
+2
A:
Probably not the best place to ask this question. Depends upon the license on the open source software. I would consult a lawyer if you are concerned about your intellectual property.
Craig Suchanec
2010-06-11 13:29:35
+2
A:
You will have the full copyright for anything you develop yourself, as normal.
You will also need to respect the license on the open source software. In some cases, this will mean that you will need to license the source code to your modifications to others under the same license (e.g. if you distribute GPL licensed code).
If you use open source code with BSD-style licenses, then you are pretty much free to do what you like with the combined work, and are under no obligation to release your modification as open source (e.g. Microsoft has historically taken BSD networking code and included it in Windows).
mikera
2010-06-11 13:30:43
p.s. regardless of the contractual rights, I believe that if you make use of open source code, you have a moral obligation to at least give something back to open source. This can be a donation, helping write documentation, testing new releases or contribution of source code of your own.
mikera
2010-06-11 13:33:31