Can I include EULA-licensed IP core in GPL codebase? I work on little hardware project in Verilog. It would be published on GitLab and would be available for Open Source community. It is licensed as GPL 3. I want to include external IP component in my codebase. It is licensed as EULA. Can I do it? The IP represents a PLL, which divides one single 50 MHz clock input into two other clock outputs of lesser frequencies. It was developed by Altera Corporation. Altera supplies this PLL IP and many other IPs with their EDA named Quartus. Source headers in such IPs look similar: // (C) 2001-2013 Altera Corporation. All rrights reserved. // Your use of Altera Corporation's design tools, logic functions and other // software and tools, and its AMPP partner logic functions, and any output // files any of the foregoing (including device programming or simulation // files), and any associated documentation or information are expressly subject // to the terms and conditions of the Altera Program License Subscription // Agreement, Altera MegaCore Function License Agreement, or other applicable // license agreement, including, without limitation, that your use is for the // sole purpose of programming logic devices manufactured by Altera and sold by // Altera or its authorized distributors. Please refer to the applicable // agreement for further details. As I see, only sole purposes are available for me. But my project will be hosted on GitLab and will be available for many. So I can't distribute this IP? The second question. How these Altera IP cores are used by other IT companies? They can't even sell their products if they wires FPGA chips configured with these proprietary IPs? No sole using is presumed in this case. Many thanks.
There are two licenses, and two parties involved who can sue you if you violate copyright by copying their IP without permission according their license. If you give source code that you are only allowed to give to Altera customers to non-Altera customers, Altera can sue you for copyright infringement. If you don’t give them the source code, the copyright holder of the GPL licensed source code can sue you for copyright infringement. Interesting question is who can sue non-Altera customers you give the source code to. And what happens if Altera customers think they are allowed to distribute the code because it is GPL licensed. So you not only commit copyright infringement, you also create a legal mess for others. And for everyone: even if code claims it is GPL licensed, you need to watch out.
First off: Legally, everything is copyrighted anyway. Licensing is not at all necessary. Hence, even if a court would disagree with # SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0, that would just make it closed source. Having said that, the law generally doesn't bother with trivialities such as &quot;file headers&quot;. Any commonly accepted way to state the copyright and license terms is OK. Your LICENSE is such a common convention. If you want to avoid all doubt what is covered under that license, put a reference to that LICENSE in each header. If you have just five files in one directory that are all licensed the same, I wouldn't even bother with that. Again, the default position is that everything is closed source.
The GCIDE dictionary itself is licensed under GPL-3.0. It consists of a bunch of files with markup, no software involved. Indeed, the GPL can also be applied to non-software works, though it is unusual. When you use material under some license, you must comply with the terms of the license. In case of the GPL, there are two highly relevant conditions: Everyone who receives a copy of the covered work (original or modified, in whole or in part) must receive the complete corresponding source code of the work, under the terms of the GPL-3.0. If you create a derivative work of the covered work, the derivative work can only be distributed under the GPL-3.0. However, selling the covered material is perfectly fine. The GPL does not forbid you to make money, however you must not profit from your requirement to provide the corresponding source code. Here, the core question is whether your mobile game would be a derivative work of the GPL-licensed dictionary. If your game merely loads the dictionary as a data file, I don't think they would form a single derived work. However, if you compile the dictionary into your app, this would be more difficult to argue. Ultimately, what is a derivative work will depend on a court. It could therefore be helpful to keep your app as clearly non-derivative as possible. I would avoid baking the dictionary into the app's binary but store it separately as a data file, would show attribution notices in reasonable places (e.g. a screen with attribution notices and the complete license text), and would make it possible for users to export a copy of the dictionary files. Furthermore, the GPL-3.0 may require you to allow users to modify this file, for example by making it possible to import a modified dictionary into your app.
You can't grant or license that which is not yours. For example, the Slack terms of service say: We grant to Customer a non-sublicensable, non-transferable, non-exclusive, limited license for Customer and its Authorized Users to use the object code version of these components, but solely as necessary to use the Services and in accordance with the Contract and the User Terms. So Slack's agreement with Org A does not give A any right to let any other organization B use the software. It does not matter how A and B are related, nor whether B is nonprofit or for-profit, nor what A would be getting in exchange. If B wants to use it, they need to make their own agreement with Slack.
Not having immediate access to the source doesn't preclude a finding of copyright infringement. If you have seen the source material, subconscious infringement can happen. However, in this example, both the short phrases doctrine and the merger doctrine would likely prevent the is_prime function from having copyright. Words and short phrases are not individually copyrightable, so the name would be free to take. Regarding the implementing code, if it isn't an exact copy (i.e. copy and paste), courts will apply the abstraction-filtration-comparision test. They may find that you took the selection and arrangement of instructions from the original source, albiet using different names. That selection and arrangement would probably be considered a substantial similarity and, if not for the merger doctrine, infringement. However, given the limited number of ways to express the prime-detection algorithm means that the expression of that idea has merged with the idea, and thus is not protected by copyright. (Or in some jurisdictions, merger is a defence to infringement rather than a bar to copyrightability).
Generally, this question is not a singular inquiry as its wording may suggest on its face. What typically tends to come up as the subject of dispute is rooted in the urban legend that one cannot obtain a patent (utility) on software. This is substantially incorrect, and any patent attorney asserting to the veracity of this makes a substantially false conclusory statement of law knowingly and willfully controverting the actual state of law in, at least, all Western jurisdictions as it omits to assert to the fact that one is not barred to obtain a patent on any system that comprises of non-obvious software, and hardware to run on is entitled to a patent — except in the U.S. where one must also comply with the Alice decision requiring that at least one hardware component in addition to the hardware of a generic computer be necessary for the utility of the system. However, in the U.S., one may obtain a software-centered patent through a (i) method or (ii) a computer program product in addition to (iii) systems or apparatuses which are available avenues for patents everywhere else. When disputes around IP and software come up, this is typically at the crux of the debate: May one obtain a software patent? The answer is: One is not barred merely because the non-obvious aspect of an invention is software. For example, if one uses hardware that are prior art, in fact, patented to someone else, but by the use of software a system, method and/or computer program product achieves a different objective (since utility patents, axiomatically, must have a utility objective) one may obtain a patent, and a layman may very well consider their invention of the system as that particular component that appears to them as having required any inventive steps, encompasses the inventive novelty (understandably) which, in many cases may be software. So the advice from a patent attorney that “you can’t patent software” is simply malicious (or wide and far disbarringly incompetent). One may patent software so long as it is an invention, and the administrative (or at times judicial) process requirements are complied with. Nevertheless, since the question inquired about “IP”, below is the answer to other avenues of intellectual property. Copyrights The software code written to make this operable could be the subject of copyright as long as it is not substantially identical with another solution (or such to give reasons to believe it to be a derivative thereof) that also put buttons in the four corners. The visual design may possibly also enjoy copyright protection, but that is less plausible to imagine since not only the copyrighted work of art is protected, but anything that may objectively be deemed a derivative work (regardless of whether the “re-author” actually knew about the copyrighted material that it may be deemed the derivate of). Design patents It is possible that one could get design patents for the actual graphical design of the layout provided there isn’t something substantially similar already out there protected by a design patent. Utility patents This would most certainly not overcome obviousness, that is, the requirement for one to obtain a patent which needs that a presented invention not be obvious for anyone “with ordinary skill in the art” (an ordinarily knowledgable person in the field of the specific area of tech). Trademark I have a hard time stretching my imagination to see how this could be applicable.
Yes, commercial use is allowed for the AGPLv3 license. You can charge for your use of the software so long as you provide a way for the public to download the source code in its entirety.
Whenever there is a license to share things, the license creator wants the license to be widely used, but absolutely does not want slightly different licenses that could be used to trick people, or that just cause legal problems when used. Normal copyright law applies. And for the reasons above, the GPL license as an example allows you to copy the license verbatim but absolutely doesn’t allow you to make any modifications other than changing who is the person licensing a work. I would be curious what happens legally if someone licenses something with a sneakily modified copy of the GPL and then makes claims against a licensee who assumed it was the original GPL.