Practical Guide to Compliance with the Licensing (General Public License)

Recently (20.08.2008) the Software Freedom Law Center has released a handy guide that provides guidance on compliance of open source licenses with the GNU General Public License . The objective is to avoid litigation, where licensed software components are incorporated into derivative software. It is likely that, when the resulting software does not comply with the terms of the General Public License, a lawsuit should be brought in respect of the compliance of the software with these terms. Such actions have been brought by the Center.

This guide explains the basic legal concepts related to the General Public License and the imposition of its terms by the beneficiaries, and proposes methods for better compliance with permit conditions and ways of dealing with beneficiaries.