The phrase “open source license” refers to a large number of agreements that license the
copyrights inherent in software widely, fairly, and with the fewest restrictions possible. This article —
the first of two — describes the tenets of copyright and explains the intents of an open source license.
The second article in this series explores individual licenses, such as the GNU Public License and the
Apache License.
In the 1600s, the British government faced an almost constant threat from pirates. In fact, in a span of less than a decade, Barbary corsairs plundered nearly 500 merchant vessels, commandeering the ships and and selling the crews and passengers into slavery. The pirates roamed with impunity, often ransacking and even decimating coastal settlements.
But the corsairs weren’t the only pirates profiting at the time. The invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1436 greatly simplified the manufacturing — and piracy — of books. Armed with moveable type presses, Scottish plagiarists “looted” British booksellers by selling bootlegged tomes at 30 to 50 percent less than the price of an original.
So, beginning with The Licensing Act of 1662 (a law that granted a state-sanctioned publishing monopoly to twenty or so booksellers), then improved in The Statute of Anne in 1710, and further clarified by the case of Donaldson v. Beckett in 1774, British Parliament created much of the modern notion of “copy right”, a law that grants certain exclusive rights to the author, or proprietor, of a creative work.
In particular, Parliament created “copy right” (literally) as the right to manufacture copies. The Statute of Anne mandated that an author or a duly-appointed agent of the author could exclusively reproduce a particular book on a particular (physical) printing press and sell those copies to the public. In effect, “copy right” granted the author an entitled monopoly and…
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