BoF: Intro to Open Source Licenses and Q&A

The presentation discusses open source licenses and their impact on software development and distribution.

• Open source licenses grant permissions and impose obligations on users and developers
• Different open source licenses have different requirements and restrictions
• Copy left licenses, such as the AGPL, require that derivative works be licensed under the same license
• Contributor license agreements and developer certificate of origin are legal agreements that govern contributions to open source projects
• SPDX provides a standard format for identifying and documenting open source licenses

The speaker explains that using code from Stack Overflow does not automatically make it open source, and that failing to give attribution may violate the terms of the license. However, the risk of consequences may vary depending on the size and nature of the user's organization.

All open source projects contain one, and possibly many open source licenses.  Whether you are consuming, contributing, or using a project downstream with your own code, you need to understand how those licenses will impact your project and your company.  We will start with an overview of basic license information, and then open up the floor to discussion and Q&A for more advanced license topics, as well as your specific project use cases.  This BoF session is suitable for anyone who wants to know more about open source licenses, from beginner to advanced topics.  The presenter is the License Scanning Manager for The Linux Foundation, and has 30 years experience in the software industry, including 10 years in software auditing, open source license scanning, and training developers in OSS license compliance.