Study On The Legal Protection Of Open Source Software

Industry of software has created a stunning worldwide wealth of knowledge under the traditional mode of protection of intellectual property. But every coin has two sides; the monopoly conferred by intellectual property has hindered the innovation and development of technology in a certain extent. In order to enhance cooperation and communication, the founder of free software movement Richard Stallman tried to create a mode of protection of intellectual property which is different from the traditional one. It is marked by shared open source code and promoted a political meaning of"freedom". He drew up General Public License (GPL), created a copyleft rules that allow free software users can share the fruit of software. They can copy, use and modify the software by free. But the emergence of open source software is not the subversion and denial of the traditional intellectual property. In fact, it makes use of the traditional intellectual property to protect itself. The emergence of open source software provides a good opportunity for Chinese software industry which had been suffered suppression by the monopoly of the developed countries for a long time to promote technological innovation. China should make good use of the revolution of open source software to find the starting point of the development of software. And a good legal environment is needed, it can provide policy, laws and market to guide Chinese software industry develop healthily and towards a right direction.This thesis is divided into three parts including introduction, body and conclusion. The first chapter is a introduction illustrated its research background and purpose, the origin of the problem, the significance of the study and so on. The second part is divided into four chapters. The first chapter began with the introduction of the concept of open source software which is identified by OSIA, and then investigates the policies that taken by many different countries and regions, and also the legislative status of open source software in China. The second chapter of the second part focus on intellectual property protection analysed the problems that open source software has to face and how to make good use of the traditional intellectual property system to protect itself under the frame of existing copyright law, patent law and trademark law, meanwhile, some typical cases are analyzed too. The third part we discussed the legal issues of open source software licence and how to protect and adjust it by contract law, and also analyzed a typical case of open source software licenses, and discussed the legal issues. Basing on China's specific conditions, some suggestions for establishing and perfecting the legal protection of open source software in our country are putted for-ward in the fourth chapter. Finally, the achievements, values and prospects are showed in the conclusion part.At last, the author hopes that this thesis can find effective ways and means to protect open source software under the frame of traditional IP system, and guide long-term development of China software industry. However, the development of science and technology is so rapid that will exceed our expectations. So, study of open source software still has a long way to go.