Is it allowed to use ideas from open source in closed source software?

Question

Is it allowed to use ideas from open source in closed source software?
I've met people who say to not even look at open source (GPL and LGPL were mentioned) if you write closed source software.

Answer 1

Yes, it is allowed to use ideas from open-source software. While the exact details differed based on which license, you can sometimes not use any code from an open-source project in a closed-source project.

Answer 2

Yes.

Then it depends what you mean by ideas... If you mean inspire yourself by looking at the software features, then ok. If you mean copying big chunks of code, you might need to double check the license.

Answer 3

Ideas aren't the subject of copyright; code is. As long as you don't steal the implementation, you're fine.

Patents, on the other hand...

Answer 4

Ideas cannot be copyrighted, although they can be patented.

Nor does this apply to a large number of open source licenses. GPL and LGPL are the most likely to fall under this band, since they're widely used and there are consequences for redistributing them.

I'd think that the most likely reason is that, if your developers haven't looked at Foo Extreme or whatever the project is, you have an easy way of showing that they haven't copied something from it. The next most likely is that it is possible to copy something without consciously realizing it.

Answer 5

Like Nathaniel has already said, yes it is fine to use ideas. You may also use the code, but, and I cannot stress this enough, it depends on the licence and not all licences will allow it.

I think the reasons people are discouraged or even disallowed from looking at OSS code is to prevent the intentional or unintentional use of parts of the code in software where this will cause a breach of licence agreement. Having never worked in such an environment, its hard to say but it seems logical. Also, if its enforced that developers may not look at OSS or other projects' code, its a given that they have not been able to steal code from within.

Some licences allow the use of code in other projects, as I said above. However, this is always (that I have seen) with the condition that copyright notices and whatnot remain intact. Reading the particular licence in question is recommended for viewing the specifics.

BSD Licence.

As always, if in doubt surrounding licences and whatnot, seek legal advice to avoid doing something you might regret. :)

Answer 6

Yes you can. As others have alluded to the code is the implementation of an idea, the rights to use them are separately assigned. The opposite is also true, you can have an open source version of a patented idea. VTK, an open source graphics package, used to have a separate part of its source tree set aside for patented algorithms (it still may, I haven't looked at it for a while).