Open Source Specialists in Deutsche Telekom AG Released Open Source License Compendium (OSLiC) in a Creative Commons License

Created at Friday, 24 May 2013 11:16 Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 May 2013 17:38 Written by Yuwen Huang, Joseph Y. C. Chen, Lucien Lin

With the support of Deutsche Telekom AG, the devotion of its senior technical engineers Karsten Reincke and Greg Sharpe, and the help from numerous Open Source Software community members, the practical and models-provided manual for Open Source Softwares in commercial use, the Open Source License Compendium (OSLiC) was released. By setting the target audience as in-house software engineers, OSLiC is NOT just a theoretical book for paralegal. Instead, OSLiC introduces Open Source Software licensing in a systematic and catalogic way. In other words, the book illustrates different obligation processes by model explanations. As long as users have defined their chosen projects, it is easy to complete the step by step License Compliance process. Another unique character of OSLiC is that it was released by a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike German 3.0 License. By that, OSLiC can be translated and revised into different languages. Besides, OSLiC, in a very Open Source thinking, was released in GitHub and had been committed and maintained in the same mode as Open Source projects. Interested persons can trace the revisions and develop their own modified and interactive versions or frameworks by derivative development.

In a nutshell, OSLiC is a practical manual which enables Open Source License participants, no matter the participant is the developer, manager, Open Source expert, or company, to reliably specify how to use Open Source Software in a regular manner and fulfill the obligations from a specific Open Source License. Chapter 1 of the book introduces the analysis framework and suggested method to use it. Chapter 2 deals with basic characters of different licensing types in a summarizing manner. Chapter 3 further elaborates Open Source Software’s possible side effects on business models. While Chapter 4 & 5 instruct developers how to make use of the charts and step-by-step-analysis for gathering the relevant information to find suitable project licensing status. For instance, 1. The type of the Open Source Software as an includable code snippet, a linkable module or library, a loadable plugin, an autonomous program, application or server which can be executed?; 2. The state of modified one or unmodified one; 3. The implement context as an independent unit or an embedded component to other packages; 4. The recipient who are going to use the Open Source Software; and 5. The providing form on distribution in binaries or in sources. By completing the series analysis, users will be referred to OSLiC Chapter 6 for To-Do Lists on Open Source License Compliance. For example, Chapter 6.3 is about the commercial usage of Apache-2.0 softwares. OSLiC divides the Apache-2.0 software implementation model into the following 9 types: 1. Using the software only for yourself; 2. Passing the unmodified software as source code; 3. Passing the unmodified software as binaries; 4. Passing a modified program as source code; 5. Passing a modified program as binary; 6. Passing a modified library as independent source code; 7. Passing a modified library as independent binary; 8. Passing a modified library as embedded source code; 9. Passing a modified library as embedded binary. Based on the information acquired from fore mentioned charts analysis, users can pick correct implementation model and realize the mandatory, voluntary To-Do points, and prohibiting deeds by the examples.

The latest OSLiC version is the 0.95.3 released in April 16, 2013. Though the content is still under revising and polishing, OSLiC is now firsthand adopted and used in Deutsche Telekom AG. This practice also ratified the fact that the manual is beneficial to the management of Open Source Software compliance and legitimacy for ICT industry. We strongly recommend interested Open Source developers and license researchers to download the OSLiC for further utilization. Were your respected company have the demand for this mechanism, you would find the well-defined process and model illustrated by Karsten Reincke and Greg Sharpe in this book very helpful.

Open Source Specialists in Deutsche Telekom AG Released Open Source License Compendium (OSLiC) in a Creative Commons License

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