Our purpose in writing this paper is to show how new capabilities in the free and open source software stack enable highly regulated and sensitive industrial concerns to take advantage of the full spectrum of modern copyleft software, including code under the GNU General Public License, version 3 (“GPLv3”), and to manage their obligations under those licenses in ways that are commercially sound.

Few products encapsulate both the challenges and the possibilities in this area like the automobile. This whitepaper explains how a specific, existing form of FOSS software distribution, Ubuntu Core and “snap” technology, can achieve the goals of software governance, security and liability in modern cars.

Distributions of free software involve sharing of computer program, which is mostly governed by copyright law. Other legal rights, involving trademark, patent, trade dress protection, protection against unfair competition, and other legal doctrines are potentially involved as well. When hundreds or thousands of programs and associated files containing documentation or configuration data combined into “packages” are then aggregated into “distributions” such as Debian, Fedora, RHEL or Ubuntu, the significance of these related rights increases, and the complexity of their interaction does as well.

Our practice at SFLC involves advising clients on the interaction of these rights and the difficulties that arise from their overlapping nature especially as they travel between non-commercial and commercial parties.

We publish this document explaining the interaction of these peripheral rights for the benefit of the larger community in furtherance of our mission of spreading awareness about Free and Open Source Software.

SFLC’s amicus brief before the Supreme Court in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. arguing (1) that the Federal Circuit erred in reversing the District Court’s determination that a reasonable jury could find Google’s use of Java in Android was a fair use; (2) that the Supreme Court should ensure the Federal Circuit’s decision that APIs are copyrightable does not establish precedent; and (3) that the Federal Circuit is bound to follow the precedent of the regional courts of appeals on questions of copyright law.

SFLC’s amicus brief before the Supreme Court in Google, Inc. v. Oracle America. SFLC and FSF take the position that the decision below is wrong, but that certiorari should not be granted for three reasons: (1) the decision of the Federal Circuit merely mispredicts what the Ninth Circuit would do if it had been the Court resolving Oracle’s appeal from the District Court’s finding that the application program interface declarations at issue are non-copyrightable; (2) the decision rests on narrow factual grounds; and (3) there is no public interest in continuing to adjudicate this dispute because Google can now and could have used all material at issue under the terms of the GNU GPL v2.