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What happens if you break an open source license and include a code released under GPL in a closed source project?
Can you go to jail? Who will sue you? For what? "Not respecting the will" of those who created the free source code? Is there any support in the jurisdiction (of any state) that would put any punishment to those who do not respect software freedom?
Inspired by a question I have just seen on SO: Is it allowed to use ideas from open source in closed source, not being able to find any answer to this question.
Don't get legal advice from coders.
My guess: if you break the terms of a licence (not a contract, as has been pointed out) then the other party could go to court and get an order or injunction to stop you selling your software until the GPL code portions are removed. If you were to disobey the courts then the courts may well be able to fine you, send you to jail etc.
I can't begin to guess how likely such an outcome would be.
There do seem to be many less onerous licences than GPL, and lots of good stuff under those licences.
Here is the best explanation ever: http://lwn.net/Articles/61292/ The main idea is that GPL is License, not Contract, thus not exchange of obligations.
Don't assume that just because most OSS developers will be to lazy to sue you, you'll get away with it. I know lots of OSS developers (myself included) who would just transfer the copyright of their code to the FSF if they found out you stole their code. The FSF would then go after you with a burning passion. This has happened several times.
Bottom line, don't steal from the OSS community. It's really bad karma.
I guess you might get sued by the FSF, but I believe your worst problem will be terrible PR and karma.
I've been told that there's alsoa special "bolgia" in Hell for people that do that, but I can't tell for sure.
If you break an open-source license, the authors of the software would have remedies under copyright law. Should they choose to try to enforce them, the first step would be to have a lawyer send you a "cease and desist letter". It's then up to you to cease and desist or to argue that your use does not violate the license. If you can't agree with the copyright holders, maybe you agree on a settlement, where they agree not to pursue the case, perhaps in exchange for money. If it goes to court, the remedies of first resort probably include things like having the federal government force you to stop distributing the infringing work, paying monetary damages, that sort of thing. I don't think there are criminal penalties for violating copyright law, but there probably are criminal penalties (contempt of court) for willfully ignoring an order from a federal judge. Far before it gets to that stage, you should consult a lawyer.
My credentials for answering this question: I have received a cease-and-desist letter ordering me to stop misusing a trademarked term (not identical to copyright law, but similar). I responded asking the law term to point out exactly where I had misused the term, because otherwise I could not comply with a blanket request to stop misusing their trademark. I never heard back from them.
Presumably the copyright holders could sue to have the non-compliant project's source code released to the public licensed code removed from the project or to bring the project into compliance. This would be a civil action to enforce a contract copyright. I haven't read about any criminal implications to date.
You die in a fire. Immediately. You like burst into flames as soon as you make your first sale. Its terrible. Don't do it.
But seriously, you would get sued by whomever's code you stole. I am not a lawyer, of course, but I don't think its a criminal issue, so no jail time. If its a big enough deal, the Free Software Foundation or the Electronic Frontier Foundation might get involved, but they have no direct legal involvement.
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I am building a 'software as a service' website that will be charging users a small monthly fee. I am considering changing the Github repository over from Private to Public. Essentially open sourcing it. Is this suicide? I would like the community to be able to benefit from the code. It is unlikely that I will accept any push request so I'm not going to gain anything in that regard. It is community based, so I think most of the value would be lost by someone self hosting it. It is for a very niche audience so I doubt someone else will start a competing hosting. I would really like the code to be in the open, but not at the expense of my idea of course. How does everyone else feel about this? What is common practice?
Conclusion, I'm keeping it closed for the time being. I may look to open source sometime after launch however.
Since you are not going to accept pushes you might as well hold on get your code stable and then publish it for others to learn and benefit from. You are still building the service, so its not going to attract too many eyeballs either.
From a business point of you, you might want to have a reasonable community around your service before you opensource it. if you are still budding who knows if its taken up by a stronger competitor. If your idea is patented its a different story.
To be honest, and this is not likely going to be a popular answer, but to myself, I would keep it closed for a period of time.
The reasons for this are simple, establish your foothold in the marketplace, build your userbase, your brand, then it gives you a mechanism to market your product further by selectively or completely open sourcing components of your system.
I say do it for both personal benefit and potential strategic benefit ... afterall, alot of software IS a service
Most open-source projects stand to provide a return in the right circumstances. Don't forget, unless you have a patent or some massive advance that is so complex and unfathomable that nobody can re-implement it .. if they want to they will anyway, so you have little protection staying closed source anyway ... even more interesting is that the open-source equivalent may well overtake your proprietary one if it garners support.
People may send you great ideas you never thought of, or take your codebase in a direction you would not have predicted. Unless you have significant value in terms of IP or strategic position tied up in the source code ... releasing it will probably do more good than harm.
Also, by being first to the open-source arena with your code, you gain control over any resulting community driven development ... if somone reimplemented your functionality and went open source ... could you compete on any front?
I know it is a cliche, but probably for good reason, but read The Cathedral and the Bazaar and the essay Open Source as a Signalling Device - An Economic Analysis which is an interesting read. Michael E. Porter's texts on competition analysis are interesting when held up against the mixed value economics and competitive forces of open source and shows how disruptive open-sourcing a product can be to competitors ... and how it can add value to your market position. Also, whilst counterintuative, it can raise the barriers to a successful entry by competitors.
More food for thought on the advantages and disadvantages of open sourcing:
What the DoD thinks of open source
Alfred H. Essa "Innovation and strategic advantage: lessons from open source" (warning, journal link)
I like to fix flaws wherever I see them, and perhaps I am one of your users. I'd rather send a patch than send a potentially nagging-sounding email any day.
What benefit are you hoping to gain from making the code open source? If you don't want the input of other developers then there are very few advantages and a whole lot of potential disadvantages.
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When I'm about to write a short algorithm, I first check in the base class library I'm using whether the algorithm is implemented in it. If not, I often do a quick google search to see if someone has done it before (which is the case, 19 times out of 20).
Most of the time, I find the exact code I need. Sometimes it's clear what license applies to the source code, sometimes not. It may be GPL, LGPL, BSD or whatever. Sometimes people have posted a code snippet on some random forum which solves my problem.
It's clear to me that I can't reuse the code (copy/paste it into my code) without caring about the license if the code is in some way substantial. What is not clear to me is whether I can copy a code snippet containing 5 lines or so without doing a license violation.
Can I copy/paste a 5-line code snippet without caring about the license? What about one-liner? What about 10 lines? Where do I draw the line (no pun intended)?
My second problem is that if I have found a 10-line code snippet which does exactly what I need, but feel that I cannot copy it because it's GPL-licensed and my software isn't, I have already memorized how to implement it so when I go around implementing the same functionality, my code is almost identical to the GPL licensed code I saw a few minutes ago. (In other words, the code was copied to my brain and my brain after that copied it into my source code).
Edit: I'm located in Sweden. It makes me even more confused that this is country-dependent. What if I re-use a piece of code (in a manner which is legal where I live) and I sell this source code to a company in a country where the re-use of code would be illegal.
I am not a lawyer - but i've recently been involved in looking at issues like this. Copying and pasting code from blogs can certainly be considered copyright infringement unless the blog states the license that the code is under and how it can be reused.
I'd recommend using sample code like this only to give you the general process/idea for a solution - then reimplement the idea from your own head and in your own style.
As also suggested, mailing for permission is another alternative. Most people blogging code are open to having it reused.
On the first problem: silly as that law may be, technically copyright applies to any expression, and applies without requiring the author of the expression to assert it explicitly; if there is no license, you might in theory be liable for copyright violation even for small snippets. Possible defenses are based on fair use, but (again, in theory) you might end up in court to defend yourself with that (your fair use claim does not stop the copyright holder from suing -- nothing does, except common sense -- but the judge might decide in your favor if he or she decides the use is indeed fair).
Your second problem hinges on whether your code is a derivative work of the snippet, another thorny concept which mingles with the "fair use" issue. Again, the only definitive answer is the one a judge gives in the specific case ("definitive" unless overruled by an appeals court, actually;-).
Remember, most lawmakers are lawyers by training: sometimes one may wonder if they make the laws subtle and difficult just in order to ensure lawyers will always have plenty of jobs;-).
It largly depends on country. In some countries programs are threated as pices of literature so small amount of 'quote' is allowed as a fair use.
Unfortunatly you have to state which country you live in and check what's the local copyright law. In most cases cheaper solution is mailing author for permission (especially if it is open source project).
Copyright law (as in the Berne Convention) protects even small pieces of writing to some extent, so you'd have to consult somebody knowledgeable in the law where you live. There may be something available locally in a library, or you could consult a lawyer.
As far as what happens when you do something legal in Sweden and send it to me in the US where it might be illegal, I don't really know. I think I'd be the one in legal trouble, although there's the Dmitri Sklyarov case to worry about (he did something legal in Russia, came to the US, and was arrested under legal circumstances I don't really understand). Again, consult a lawyer.
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Today I had a bad surprise learning about some implications of the GPL license, mainly that I couldn't use it as freely as I thought.
Now I know.
What else should I know, and more widely, what should every developer know about legal things like that?
You can separate employees, freelancers, open source projects contributors (etc.) or give a more broad answer.
Twelve Legal Considerations for Software Development
Software is copyrighted if it is made available to the general public. It is no longer necessary to put a copyright notice on the application or in the source code. The owner of the copyright is the author(s) or company paying the author(s).
The copyright of software can be assigned by the owner of the copyright, or it can be retained by the owner and the software can be licensed to the user or users by the owner.
Libraries used in development probably have restrictions in their use and distribution. GPL does not make a library public domain, nor does the fact that the library comes with a development platform. You should read and understand the license before you distribute your application. Some libraries require royalty payments, although this has become less common in recent years.
Software patent lawsuits are crap shoots. You should not, of course, knowingly violate a software patent. However, there is a small but real chance some company will sue you for violating their patent. This may happen even if you develop your software independently, you never heard of the patent, and the patent covers a technique that is intuitively obvious and almost completely unrelated to your software. There is not a lot you can do to avoid this, given the current USPTO policies, other than buy insurance. The good news is that patent trolls generally sue large companies with lots of money.
If you use an employee or freelancer to develop software, you should make it clear, in writing, who owns the copyright to the application, including the source code. Some freelancers and contract development companies consider the source code their own property, leaving the company dependent on the original developer(s). This is legal if it's in the development agreement.
If you have an employee who develops software "off the clock," you should make it clear who owns that software, and what kind of software the employee should be able to write and distribute outside of the company.
If you are an employee or freelancer developing software, you should make it clear who will own the copyright to your application, before you begin development. Also, you should know or clarify who owns software you write on your own time. Some companies have clauses in employment agreements claiming ownership to any software written by a developer during the period of employment, whether at home or at work. Many companies have non-compete clauses in employment agreements that restrict the software an employee can produce for distribution outside the company. Sometimes these restrictions are pretty broad.
A trademark is a name or symbol, not the software itself. If you distribute software, you should (a) make sure your application name and "mark" or design of the name is not "confusingly similar" with other applications, and (b) register your trademark. Date of first use is important in resolving conflicts, so you should document when the application is first used in commerce.
When you name an application, check for registered trademarks, but also check Google. An application with first use of the name may be able to take your name and trademark after your application is successful, even if they have not registered the trademark and you have.
When you use or sign a contract or agreement, make sure both parties understand it. In an employment agreement, mentioning any potentially sensitive areas up front can prevent a lot of problems later. In a development agreement, if both parties know who owns the source code, or who is responsible for upgrades, or who is responsible for maintenance, etc., going into the development project, then there is much less likelihood of a lawsuit after the application has been completed. In a distribution agreement, make sure the distributor understands the responsibilities and term of the agreement.
Every non-trivial application has bugs (or "design considerations" :-)). Any user agreement or distribution agreement should make it clear that you are not responsible for bug-free software, and you cannot be expected to fix all bugs. Make it clear that changes, fixes, and upgrades are made at the option (or best efforts) of the developer, and make it clear who pays for fixes and upgrades.
Even after you consult a lawyer about software development and distribution agreements, you should read agreements from other software companies and see what their lawyers came up with.
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
When in doubt, contact a lawyer.
I'm no lawyer but over time I have gathered a few rules of thumb from legal people that you can use to save time:
GPL license is 'copy-left' or 'viral'. It means that any code that you write that depends on a GPL component must also be released under GPL. A good rule of thumb is that if you need a GPL component to compile your software, your software must be released under a GPL license.
You are not obliged to make your source available if you're not distributing your software. For example, if you run the software for internal purposes or on a web server you do not need to release the source. That is why Google doesn't need to release their software that use GPL libraries. It was a key contention point in GPL v3.
LGPL (Library or Lesser GPL) only requires you to GPL your own source code if you incorporate the LGPL-ed library in such a way that it becomes irreplaceable. Your own software do not need to be GPL if you only 'use' the library. Including header files and linking against a .dll/.so of the library is one of the ways you can 'use' LGPL-ed code without any obligations, except for the proper copyright notice.
BSD License (the Apache License is very similar) allows you to create commercial extensions of that use the open source component. That is why Apple chose FreeBSD over Linux as the kernel for OSX.
MPL is very commercial friendly because Netscape thought that they might make some money out of Mozilla at the time the license was written.
It often helps to contact the maintainer of the Open Source project. They are in the best position to advice you about the original intention of the license as well as their own views on open source. Sometimes maintainers are willing to release software under multiple licenses to help you out. Often they are not. Depends on the person who owns the copyright.
The KDE project has a handy matrix
I think Legal Guide to Web & Software Development by Stephen Fishman Attorney is what you're looking for.
Review
An amazing book! Answers nearly
every legal question you can imagine
and some you would have never thought
of. -- John Dvorak, PC Magazine
Covers every imaginable detail
important to such a rapidly growing
and intangible medium. -- Entrepreneur
This book passes my own personal test
for legal guides --with higher marks
than any other legal guide. -- Jeff
Duntemann, Editor, PC Techniques
Magazine
Product Description
Protect your rights, and your hard work!
The laws covering website and software
development are complex and confusing,
but if you don't untangle them, it
could cost you thousands of dollars in
attorneys' fees and lawsuits.
Fortunately, Legal Guide to Web &
Software Development decodes this
complex area of the law, thoroughly
and in reader-friendly English. It
also provides contracts, agreements
and legal forms on CD-ROM, with
step-by-step instructions for filling
them out, so you can protect your
software and website without paying a
lawyer's ransom.
Use Legal Guide to Web & Software
Development to learn:
what kind of legal protection you need
the strengths and limitations of each type of protection
how to avoid infringement
which provisions you need when drafting an agreement
how to obtain permission to use other people's materials
You'll find complete, step-by-step
instructions to draft:
employment agreements
contractor and consultant agreements
development agreements
license agreements
The 5th edition of Legal Guide to Web
& Software Development is completely
updated to provide the latest case law
and statutory revisions.
Some other suggestions :
Working for Yourself: Law & Taxes for Independent Contractors, Freelancers & Consultants (Same author).
Consultant & Independent Contractor Agreements (Same author).
Software Licensing Handbook by Jeffrey I. Gordon.
Practical Guide to Software Licensing for Licensees & Licensors by H. Ward Classen.
The Tech Contracts Pocket Guide: Software and Services Agreements for Salespeople, Contract Managers, Business Developers, and Lawyers by David Tollen.
If a freelancer or contractor: make sure you have good liability insurance and know what's covered under it.
For instance, mine doesn't cover liability for mistakes made in code that might expose credit card numbers. So I don't touch that stuff any more!
For employees : we should be able to give a first round of advice to your clients -- like can they/we use the component we want, in their application ?
For freelancers : we must be able to give strong advice to your clients ; and choose which components we can use for the applications we develop for them.
You course, your word is not as good as the advices a lawyer can get you ; but you can already help for a first round ; for instance, to say "we definitly can't use this because it would mean..."
In the end, the lawyer will know much about corner cases -- but if you can help a bit...
For OSS contributors : knowing some differences between free licences can matter if you care what people can do with your code (redistribute ? modify ? use it in commercial application ? use it in proprietary application ? )
One answer has asserted that the law is not like code. I disagree.
In the early days, IBM paid programmers by the instruction. (Someone I knew said he worked with a programmer who got rich this way. Apparently the guy didn't know how to use the machine's index register; he wrote a memory-zero routine that manually stored zero in each memory address.)
There was also a time (long ago) when lawyers were paid by the word. This helped to popularise practices such as addressing people as "the most highly esteemed such-and-such" and other verbosities.
I just read an answer on SO that said VB.NET 2008 still allows line numbers. You can still run pure DOS on a modern PC. And there is much truth to the joke that all COBOL programs are decended from a common ancestor by incremental changes. Backwards-compatibility, and "historical reasons", are rife in our field.
This is comparable to the realm of law. There are laws which make small (or big) changes to other laws. You've got a kind of dependency-hell. There are some ridiculous historical laws (in Hobart, Tasmania, it's illegal for a man to wear a woman's dress after sunset - because once upon a time, convicts would dress up as women and mug people) that nobody would dream of enforcing, just as there are some historical features in software that nobody uses anymore.
Laws often have unintended consequeuences (bugs!), get used in creative ways (hacks!), contain loopholes (security vulnerabilities!), some of which are intentional (backdoors!), get modified (patches!) or overturned (uninstallation!).
Yes, laws (unlike code) are subject to interpretation. But I think this is rather like code maintenance. It helps to adjust laws to new social norms.
To answer the question directly: every developer should know that law is rather like a ridiculously enormous software project that has been in development for hundreds of years. (Actually, each country has its own project, and they solve problems in different ways.) In theory, after reading a licence you will know what you can and can't do with your code. But if a competent programmer can't spot all the bugs in his code just by reading it, then what chance does a non-lawyer have of analysing the corner cases and grey areas of a legal document?
Like with software source code, you can usually get the gist of a legal document by reading it, but if you need to know something specific, ask a professional.
NOLO (I don't work for them) publishes a good set of legal how to books for the layman.
http://www.nolo.com/products/a-legal-guide-to-web-&-software-development-SFT.html
I would answer this in the same way that I would answer "what should every lawyer know about programming?" That is to say, know that there's no way you can possibly know the in-depth field well enough to do more than the simplest of things. Get an expert.
You should know the basic rights and obligations of the license you are going to use. It's not that hard, and even if there are plenty of them, you need to read carefully only those you are going to use or touch. Just read them, in most cases they are quite clear.
Anything else you could need, well, that depends. Patenting ? Trademarks ? If you need these things, chances are that you are in a company and have a legal department to do this for you.
I would always assume that the developers of a project want any software using their work to be released under the exact same licence. Read their FAQs and legal pages for more information and don't hesitate to contact the developers/maintainers if you are still unsure.
If you want help understanding the details of a licence agreement, talk to a lawyer.
Don't work in a country that has more lawyers than developers.
An extremely large percentage of all (U.S.) software patents are bogus, but you can't pay or wait for them to be invalidated.
If you want to use/develop open source software, use an existing license and don't modify it. Don't go near the borders of what the license is supposed to mean.
The name of a good IP lawyer.
6.If you have an employee who develops software "off the clock," you should make it clear who owns > that software, and what kind of software the employee should be able to write and distribute
outside of the company.
freedom of speech right as stated in most constitutions (esp. if devs make free s/w off-the-clock) can make such terms fail miserably in courts
The law is not like code. It is not a well cast set of steps and rules that can be unambiguously understood.
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We have a series of closed source applications and libraries, for which we think it would make sense opening up the source code.
What has been blocking us, so far, is the effort needed to clean up the code base and documenting the source before opening up.
We want to open up the source only if we have a reasonable chance of the projects being successful -- i.e. having contributors. We are convinced that the code would be interesting to a large base of developers.
Which factors, excluding the "interestingness" and "usefulness" of the project, determine the success of an open source project?
Examples:
Cleanliness of code
Availability of source code comments
Fully or partially documented APIs
Choice of license (GPL vs. LGPL vs. BSD, etc...)
Choice of public repository
Investment in a public website
There are a several things which dominate the successfulness of code. All of these must be achieved for the slightest chance of adoption.
Market - There must be a market for your open source project. If your project is a orange juicer in space, I doubt that you'll be very successful. You must make sure your project gets a large adoption amongst users and developers. It is twice as likely to succeed if you can get other corporations to adopt it as well.
Documentation - As you touched on earlier documentation is key. Amongst this documentation is commented code, architectural decisions, and API notes. Even if your documentation contains bugs, or bugs about your software it is ok. Remember, transparency is key.
Freedom - You must allow your code to be "free" - by this I mean free as in speech, not as in beer. If you have a feeling your market is being a library for other corporations a BSD license is optimal. If your piece of software is going to run on desktops then GPL is your choice.
Transparency - You must write software in a transparent environment. Once you go open source there is no hidden secrets. You must explain everything you do, and what you are doing. This will piss off developers like no other
Developer Community - A strong developer community is required. This must be existing. Only about 5% of users contribute back to the project. If someone notices there haven't been any releases for a year they wont think "Wow, this piece of software is done," they will think "developers must of dumped it." Keep your developers working on it, even if it means they are costing you money.
Communications - You must make sure you community is able to communicate. They must be able to file bugs, discuss workarounds, and publish patches. Without feedback, it is pointless to opensource the project
Availability - Making your code easy to get is necessary, even if it means pissing off lawyers. You have to make sure your project is easy to download, and utilize. You don't want the user to have to jump through 18 nag screens and sign a contract in order to do this. You have to make things simple, and clean
I think that the single most important factor is the number of users that are using your project.
Otherwise its just a really well written, usefull and well documented bunch of stuff that sits on a server not doing very much...
To acquire contributors, you first need users, then you need some incompleteness. You need to trigger the "This is cool, but I really wish it had this or was different in this way." If you are missing an obvious feature, it's extremely likely a user will become a contributor to add it.
The most important thing is that the program be good. If its not good, nobody will use it. You cannot hope that the chicken-and-egg will reverse and that people will take it for granted until it becomes good.
Of course, "good" merely means "better than any other practical option for a significant number of people," it doesn't mean that its strictly the best, only that it has some features that make it, for many people, better than other options. Sometimes the program has no equivalent anywhere else, in which case there's almost no requirement in this regard.
When a program is good, people will use it. Obviously, it has to have a market among users--a good program that does something nobody wants isn't really good no matter how well its designed. One could make a point about marketing, but truly good products, up to a point, have a tendency to market themselves. Its much harder to promote something that isn't good, so clearly one's first priority should be the product itself, not promoting the product.
The real question then is--how do you make it good? And the answer to that is a dedicated, skilled development team. One person can rarely create a good product on their own; even if they're far better than the other developers, multiple perspectives has an incredibly useful effect on the project. This is why having corporate sponsors is so useful--it puts other developers' (from the corporation) minds on the problem to give their own opinion. This is especially useful in the case that developing the program requires significant expertise that isn't commonly available in the community.
Of course, I'm saying this all from experience. I'm one of the main developers on x264 (currently the most active one), one of the most popular video encoders. We have two main developers, various minor developers in the community that contribute patches, and corporate sponsorship from Joost (Gabriel Bouvigne, who maintains ratecontrol algorithms), from Avail Media (who I work for sometimes on contract and who are currently hiring coders on contract to add MBAFF interlacing support), and from a few others that pop up from time to time.
One good developer doesn't make a project--many good developers do. And the end result of this is a program that encodes video faster and at a far better quality than most commercial competitors, hardware or software, even those with utterly enormous development budgets.
In looking at these issues you might be interested in checking out the online version of a course on open source at UC Berkeley, called Open Source Development and Distribution of Digital Information: Technical, Economic, Social, and Legal Perspectives. It’s co-taught by Mitch Kapur (Lotus founder) and Paula Samuelson, a law school professor. I have a long commute and put the audio of the course on my iPod last year – they talk a lot about what works, what doesn’t and why, from a very broad (though obviously academic) perspective.
Books have been written on the subject. In fact, you can find a free book here: producing open source software
Really, I think the answer is 'how you run the project'.
All of your examples matter, yes, but the key things are how the interaction between developers is managed, how patches etc are handled/accepted, who's 'in charge' and how they handle that responsibility, and so on and so forth.
Compare and contrast (the history isn't hard to track down!) the management of the development of Class::DBI and DBIx::Class in Perl.
I was just reading tonight an excellent post on the usability aspect of successful vs unsuccessful open source projects.
Excerpt:
A lot of bandwidth has been wasted arguing over the lack of usability in open-source software/free software (henceforth “OSS”). The debate continues at this moment on blogs, forums, and Slashdot comment threads. Some people say that bad usability is endemic to the entire OSS world, while others say that OSS usability is great but that the real problem is the closed-minded users who expect every program to clone Microsoft. Some people contend that UI problems are temporary growing pains, while others say that the OSS development model systematically produces bad UI. Some people even argue that the GPL indirectly rewards software that’s difficult to use! (For the record, I disagree.)
http://humanized.com/weblog/2007/10/05/make_oss_humane/
Just open-source it. Most probably, nobody will start contributing yet. But at least you can write on the press-releases that your product is GPL or whatever.
The first step is that people start using it...
And maybe then, after users get comfortable, they will start contributing.
Everyone's answers have been good so far, but there's one thing missing and that's good oversight. Nothing kills an open source project faster than not having some sort of project management. Not to tell people what to do so much as to just add some structure and tasking for the developers you are hoping to attract.
Disorganized projects fall apart fast. It's not a bird you just let go and watch it fly away.
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I'm a software engineer, not a lawyer, and my university doesn't offer any courses geared toward licensing software. In fact, their law-related courses are lacking (but slowly growing in number). Where can I go to learn about open-source licenses and how to choose them?
There are lots described here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#SoftwareLicenses
The decision of which one to use can be political, but should ultimately be determined by your plans/desires for the software. If you want to ensure it is always free then choose GPL or another "Copyleft" license. If you don't mind some commercial use, choose another one that's compatible with that.
I almost always end up usign MIT or BSD (they're equivalent), since it
Is the most liberal license out there. It just says you're not responsible for any kind of trouble, and optionally forces people to include a copyright notice of your original work in derivatives.
It allows closed source derivatives, which is something I see as a good thing: companies sometimes don't have the possibility to do their work under the GPL (they may themselves use products or components from a third party with restricted licenses).
That, and the GNU/GPL bunch are generally extremists when you encounter them in the wild.
This can create endless discussion, but there is one tenet I would hold to whenever deciding what license to use: DON'T CREATE A NEW ONE!!
No matter how persuasive your legal guy's arguments that, because no current license exactly meets your project's unique needs, you should write your own, or even just "slightly modify" an existing one, treat him like a programmer coming to you arguing that he just HAS to use a GOTO statement because nothing else in the language will work.
Other advice:
Choose one which has major usage (see http://freshmeat.net/stats/#license)
See David A. Wheeler's discussion of why to choose a license compatible with the GPL - http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html.
If you are looking for information regarding free and open source licenses a useful comparison chart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_software_licences
You could always just use the best one of all, the WTFPL. I use this on most of my school projects since they aren't that great anyways.
Wikipedia, of course, has basically all the information you would ever need to know. But the hard part is to know where to start. I'd recommend starting off by reading about the Apache License and the GNU GPL, which are two popular sides to the same story, each offering different freedoms to the people associated with the code.
But here it is in a nutshell: Apache License lets anyone do anything with your code, including taking it and using it in a closed source product. It gives whoever is taking the code the freedom to do what they want with it.
The GNU GPL, on the other hand, allows your code only to be used in a project that is also distributed under the GPL. In this case you might write some code and prevent a proprietary company from using your work. Here, you're giving freedom to the code itself that it will always be used for "free" purposes.
I'm slightly surprised to see no mention of the Open Source Initiative as a source of information about which open source licences exist. It probably doesn't do the comparisons, so the other sites are also worth checking.
More pragmatic reasons can also influence your choice of license - if you want to use a GPL library, you must use GPL yourself, or if you intend your software to be part of a larger project then you need to look at their requirements.
I've recently begun investigating the type of licensing to apply to a rather substantial piece of work. The number of choices and the content, restrictions (or not) and limitations of all the open-source licenses is bewildering. I've found a couple good links in the answers posted, but I didn't see anything pointing to the Open Source Initiative's alphabetical list of licenses, so I've included it here.
We had a similar dilemma. At our company we decided invest lots of time on a framework, with the eventual hope of releasing it to the open source community. The business is built using open source tools (apache, php, etc.), it was time to give back. We decided on an LGPL/MPL dual license. That way, we could incorporate fixes/improvements from the community, while still protecting applications (particularly ours) running on top of it from being forced to go open source as well.