Recording: YouTube

Synopsis Free and open source software owes its existence to copyright laws, but as the community has grown, understanding of copyright and licensing has diminished. Source code hosting sites are now replete with improperly licensed projects, license violations, and users and developers who are unclear what rights they actually have. But it doesn't have to be this way!

This presentation will open with a crash course on copyright, and then narrow its focus to issues related to Free Software licensing -- how the licenses actually work, how to choose a license appropriate for your project, where trademarks and patents fit into all this, and what licensing things you should NEVER EVER DO. We'll close with a look at the Supreme Court's recent decision in Oracle v. Google and its implications for free software.

Bio Matthew Frazier is TriLUG's PR Officer and a recent graduate of NC State University's Computer Science program. At NC State, he developed and taught the Digital Millennium Copyright Class, a one-hour seminar course on modern copyright issues. He enjoys participating in the free/open source software community by presenting and teaching at conferences and user groups. (And sometimes he even writes code.)