Discussion On The Legal Issues About The Open Source Software License

With the rapid development of computer software, it becomes more important to use law to protect software. Nowadays the research of the copyright of software has been under way all around the world. On the basis of using copyright law to protect software, the standard of obtaining patent for software has become less strict. Thus, this article introduces the new concept of opening the source code of software and studies the pattern of legal protection of software from a much freer angle and from the angel of the interest of social public. The software consists of source code, structure and function. Source code is a format that can be directly recognized and it includes the programming statements that programmers write as well as the annotations and notes. It reflects the thinking track of programmers, and the object codes can also be regarded as source codes after edit. Opening source code may make it difficult to protect software under the principle of "not protecting the thought". Consequently, many commercial software agreements prohibit the users to have access to the source codes. But on the other hand, the source codes are of great significance to later programmers in revision and improvement. As a result, Open Source Software has won the favor all over the world due to its peculiar developing mode and has aroused the developing enthusiasm of programmers. But the case of SCO indicting IBM, which will be handled this April, breaks the ideal state people have imagined and puts the legality of Open Source Software and the rationality of Open Source Software agreements into the agenda. This article first affirms the spontaneous software democratization process; through the introduction of producing process of Open Source Software and its agreements, this article shows that patent is the precondition of the continuing existence of Open Source Software; by studying the problems in the practice of Open Source Software agreement, this article then reflects its existing problems; through a comparative study of the advantages and disadvantages of copyright law and patent law, this article concludes that overemphasis on the protection of copyright will lead to imbalance of social benefits, thus making it hard to promote science and technology since users and the public need to reserve certain creative space. The Open Source movement also predicts that the developing trend of software industry will be more commercialized and the legal owners of software works will keep complete or partial source code to ensure the safety and stability of software. Microsoft is a typical example to open its source code to our government. Consequently, the author holds that the protective mode of computer software should promote copyright agreement to the full under the present legal protective system, to enhance the free exchange of copyright and minimize the negative effects of law and economy on technology. At last, the author hopes that this article can attract more valuable opinions from others and provide a new angle of view of studying the legal protection of software.