The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has published an 8,000-word guide to effective compliance with the GNU General Public License (GPL), the most popular open source software license in the world. The guide overviews the legal obligations of GPL users, and recommends best practices for avoiding violations.

The SFLC was created to protect the legal interests of open source programmers, enabling them to focus on their programming. It has become known for a series of lawsuits against alleged GPL violators. However, it does most of its GPL license enforcement work “behind the scenes,” it says.

The paper was written by SFLC lawyers and advocates, including Aaron Williamson, Bradley M. Kuhn, and Karen M. Sandler. Kuhn, a developer and advocate, stated, “Cooperative and non-confrontational enforcement has always been and remains the norm and preference of everyone in the community. Through this guide, we further advance that goal by providing even more information to help those who commercialize FLOSS to comply easily from the start.”

The guide, entitled “A Practical Guide to GPL Compliance”, is available online, here.

 
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