Compliance
17. May 2023 / 11. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | Leave a Comment
To speed up deliverability, the developers mostly distribute compressed JavaScript libraries that do not contain any whitespaces, line feeds, and comments. They have minified the libs. As a result, they usually contain only very rudimentary license information — at least not the license text itself. But all FOSS licenses require us to ship some compliance […]
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Compliance Web-Design
2. March 2023 / 8. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | Leave a Comment
I love ZEN presentations. For that, you need pictures. Many pictures. Good pictures. Fortunately, it is technically easy to integrate photos from the internet into your own site. What is challenging, however, is getting nice pictures legally.
1. March 2023 / 11. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | Leave a Comment
I don’t buy images. Never. I take my own pictures. Or I use free images released under a Creative Commons License. Or in the ‘public domain’. Some image databases offer their photographs under their own licenses, equivalent to the free licenses, as long as I do not make their images publicly available through another image […]
7. February 2023 / 12. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | Leave a Comment
In the European legal area, exploitation rights inherently belong to the author of a work. She does not have to do anything else. In the American legal area, things are different. There, every work falls into the ‘public domain’ by default. Only when the author actively claims her ‘copyright’, the work belongs to her. Thus, […]
11. July 2022 / 8. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | Leave a Comment
For 6 years, the Bitkom Open Source Guide 2.0 was a tutorial for the appropriate use of open-source software. It was a benchmark for German companies. But it has aged over time, naturally. Good that Bitkom and its ‘Open Source’ working group have taken up the topic again: In June 2022, there was officially released […]
26. February 2022 / 8. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | Leave a Comment
A presentation without images sucks. Therefore, we are sometimes tempted to take some from the Internet for beautifying our work. There are so many excellent pictures on the World Wide Web. But to legally inserting a foreign picture in one’s own presentation is not that easy. Unfortunately, a new type of troll has emerged recently, […]
28. November 2020 / 8. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | Leave a Comment
By releasing the Open Source License Compendium and the Open Source Compliance Advisor, Deutsche Telekom has supported Open Source Compliance. At BOSL‑3.0 I was one of the co-authors — on behalf of DT. But DT offers so many complex Open Source based products that it is too expensive to create the necessary Open Source compliance […]
Tools
16. June 2020 / 11. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | Leave a Comment
Today, the German Corona-Warn-App was released as Open Source Software. You may know it as CWA. The journalists mostly received it positively, even those of Spiegel and Welt. The German government wanted to release it as open-source software. That should increase the acceptance of the app by the German people. Unfortunately, there is still some […]
Compliance Musicology
29. October 2019 / 8. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | 2 Comments on GPL-Licensed LilyPond Snippets — And Some Sideaffects
This article talks about some side effects. It explains why it is a bit suboptimal to distribute LilyPond snippets under the terms of the GPL. Even, if one loves to create, share, and/or use free and open-source software. And believe me, I do so. The side effect is simple. Including GPL-licensed LilyPond snippets enforce you […]
30. June 2019 / 8. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | 1 Comment on YOCTO, IoT, and the GPLv3
IoT gadgets often only offer interfaces that do not allow inspecting or modifying their software. YOCTO tries to build specific software for IOT gadgets. And the GPLv3 requires that GPLv3-licensed software must be replaceable. Thus, YOCTO, IOT, and the GPLv3 are in a clinch, if YOCTO wants to be a distribution for IOT devices that […]
17. February 2019 / 8. August 2023 by Karsten Reincke | Leave a Comment
Currently, I am reviewing music software, for example, JNIZ. It allows “[…] to build and to harmonize several voices according to the rules of classical harmony.” Although it is hosted on SourceForge, the JINZ Licensing fails: The license is ‘strange’. And by this, the author finally violates the GPL. A paramount example:
