Open SaaS: Using Free and Open Source Software as Software-as-a-Service

Authors

  • Miriam Ballhausen

Keywords:

copyright law, FOSS, Free and Open Source Software, Software licensing, unknown type of use

Abstract

Under German copyright law, rights of use cannot be granted for so-called unknown types of use. Software-as-a-Service (hereinafter: “SaaS”) is a use considered to be unknown until the mid 1990s. When taking the law in a literal sense, Free and Open Source Software (hereinafter: “FOSS”) licenses granted before then thus cannot grant the rights of use necessary for SaaS, meaning that some FOSS cannot be lawfully made available via SaaS under German copyright law.

Downloads

Published

2015-04-22

Issue

Vol. 6 No. 1 (2014)

Section

Articles

License

The most restrictive licence we will accept for submission is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 international (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) SPDX identifier CC-BY-4.0

How to Cite

Open SaaS: Using Free and Open Source Software as Software-as-a-Service. (2015). Journal of Open Law, Technology & Society, 6(1), 61-68. https://www.jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/view/103