What are the main legal issues that can arise with free and open source software licensing?
The first issue is who the copyright holder is and the second issue is what license I might have to use, copy, modify or distribute the software. Then, the next issue might be what is allowed under the licenses I might have. Where the copyright holder is known and amenable to additional non-exclusive licenses under different terms, such licenses might be negotiated. For example, where a company wants to incorporate particular software into their product and distribute that product on a proprietary basis (e.g., per-copy licensing, a prohibition on reverse engineering, etc.), the company might sign a license agreement with the copyright holder that grants the company more rights to be proprietary than under the available open source license. When a company decides to release its own software under an open source license, there are issues of which license to use, and whether to create a new license. Large companies also need to have some process for tracking and evaluating open source lic
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