010-160 Open Source and Licensing 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What does 'public domain' mean in the context of software?
- Software that is freely available on the internet
- Software for which the copyright has expired or been waived, allowing unrestricted use (Correct answer)
- Software owned collectively by a group of contributors
- Software that can only be used by government agencies
Correct answer: Software for which the copyright has expired or been waived, allowing unrestricted use
Public domain software has no copyright restrictions, either because the copyright expired or the author explicitly waived all rights.
Question 2: Which of the following statements about the BSD 2-Clause license is correct?
- It requires derivative works to be released under the same license
- It prohibits use in commercial software
- It allows use in proprietary software with minimal restrictions (Correct answer)
- It requires patent rights to be granted to all users
Correct answer: It allows use in proprietary software with minimal restrictions
The BSD 2-Clause license is a permissive license that allows use in proprietary software, requiring only attribution and preservation of the license text.
Question 3: A company forks a project licensed under the MIT License and sells it as a proprietary product without releasing source code. Is this permitted?
- No, all MIT-derived works must remain open source
- Yes, the MIT License permits this as long as the copyright notice is retained (Correct answer)
- No, the company must pay a royalty to the original author
- Yes, but only if the company joins the Open Source Initiative
Correct answer: Yes, the MIT License permits this as long as the copyright notice is retained
The MIT License is permissive and allows proprietary forks; the only requirement is retaining the original copyright and license notice.
Question 4: What is the main goal of the GNU Project, started by Richard Stallman in 1983?
- To develop a free Unix-compatible operating system (Correct answer)
- To create the Linux kernel as a replacement for UNIX
- To establish the Open Source Initiative
- To standardize open source license terms globally
Correct answer: To develop a free Unix-compatible operating system
The GNU Project aimed to develop a complete free (as in freedom) Unix-compatible operating system; Linux later provided the kernel GNU lacked.
Question 5: Which of the following is an example of a permissive open source license?
- GNU General Public License v3
- GNU Affero General Public License
- Mozilla Public License 2.0
- MIT License (Correct answer)
Correct answer: MIT License
The MIT License is a permissive license with minimal restrictions, unlike the copyleft GPL, AGPL, and the file-level copyleft MPL.
Question 6: Which of the following scenarios best illustrates a license compatibility problem?
- Combining MIT-licensed and BSD-licensed code in the same project
- Linking an Apache 2.0 library into a GPLv2-only program for distribution (Correct answer)
- Using CC BY content in a blog post with attribution
- Including GPLv3 code in a GPLv3-licensed project
Correct answer: Linking an Apache 2.0 library into a GPLv2-only program for distribution
Apache License 2.0 is incompatible with GPLv2 because Apache's patent termination clause conflicts with GPLv2's terms, making combined distribution legally problematic.
Question 7: What does 'Tivoization' refer to in the context of the GPL?
- Using GPL software to create time-locked trial software
- Distributing GPL-licensed software in hardware that prevents users from running modified versions (Correct answer)
- Releasing software under the GPL only temporarily before switching to a proprietary license
- Embedding GPL software in TV streaming services without disclosure
Correct answer: Distributing GPL-licensed software in hardware that prevents users from running modified versions
Tivoization refers to the practice of shipping GPL-licensed software in hardware that is locked down to prevent users from running modified versions, which GPLv3 explicitly prohibits.
010-160 Open Source and Licensing 5
What does 'public domain' mean in the context of software?