The Research On Several Legal Issues Of Open Source Software

The legal protection of computer software has promoted the development ofcommercial software and the entire community of computer technology advances, but onthe other hand, commercial software developers own the software source code exclusiveright to use, resulting in many problems. Against such a backdrop, the open sourcemovement comes into being. However, due to the open-source software industry modeland security measures are not enough mature, the software will be to bring a lot of legalrisks to producers and users. This paper makes a preliminary analysis on the open-sourcesoftware’s feature and the intellectual property risks caused by it, and give thecountermeasures responding to these risks.This paper introduces the defects led by the closure of the source code of theproprietary software and the background of the rising of open source software. This paperdiscusses the open-source software copyright law protection, open-source software andpatent law protection, the open-source software contract law protection, the open-sourcesoftware trademark law protection and the open source software author’s rights. As thedifferences of the open-source software’s protective model and the protection of the rightsof its authors between traditional proprietary software, resulting in the open-sourcesoftware is of special law risks. To against these risks, this paper has given thecorresponding countermeasures.Our nation’s software industry is now facing the United States and other developedWestern countries’ threat of monopoly on software technology, how to use the open-sourcemovement to develop and revitalize our nation’s software industry and ensure our nation’sinformation security, open up domestic and even international software market. This is along way to go subject. Only seriously study the open-source intellectual propertyprotection, we can provide an effective reference for the healthy development of our nation’s software industry, and contribute to development of software industry by leaps andbounds.