The solution to one problem of Russian OpenSource projects

    Our OpenSource project is over 9 years old. The project is Russian. During its existence, we have encountered and overcome a large number of various difficulties. The reason for one of the problems we discovered relatively recently.

    The project is dedicated to the development of a free business process management system, based on the jBoss jBPM core and represents the software environment for this core for the end user to work with. Throughout the time since the project appeared, some potential users of the system got acquainted with the technical solutions used in the project, but came to the conclusion that they would not install the system at their enterprise, since the system was Russian. Potential users said that they’d better try to implement jBoss jBPM in the enterprise. To the remarks that our system contains jBoss jBPM inside itself and they won’t lose anything from installing the system, we did not receive any explanations. Ultimately, the following emerged:


    Potential users believed that the free LGPL license (under which the system is distributed) does not have an official legal status in Russia. Therefore, small software companies that were looking for free software to install for their customers along with their own components were afraid that in the future the organization financing the project could claim rights to the developed code, sue the company using the system in a Russian court and not only oblige it to pay a large amount of fines , but also to entice her end customers who have already implemented the system.

    At the same time, the potential user was not afraid of such behavior on the part of the owner of the jBoss jBPM project because it is a Western company. - Where this company is registered, the LGPL license, under which jBoss jBPM is distributed, has an official legal status and therefore the prosecution of a Russian company that used the code on the basis of the LGPL license by the Western company (according to the potential user) is impossible.

    Solving this problem, we learned that the issue of the legality of free licenses was carefully considered by the working group of the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media on open source software, with the participation of the legal department. This issue was also worked out by the Ministry of Economy. It was found that there are no legal obstacles to the use of open source software and the use of free licenses in Russia. All identified legal issues were not specific to STRs and related to any software.

    We found out that the fourth part of the Civil Code spelled out the requirements for licensing agreements, and for computer programs the possibility of transferring rights without concluding an agreement in writing was specially left. That is, you can transfer the software on the terms of the LGPL in the same way as on the terms of any other license formulated by the copyright holder.
    The problem with the foreign language in which the LGPL license is formulated can be solved by an apostilled translation of the license.
    Our partners informed us that Russia already has experience in delivering products under free licenses under state contracts. We even included the system in one of the distributions, which was officially registered in the Information Register.

    However, our potential users are not concerned with the theoretical results of research by legal scholars, but with the possible decisions of ordinary Russian courts, tax inspectorates and similar departments, that is, all these facts are unconvincing for them.

    Therefore, we acted as follows:
    1. We took the most famous translation of the LGPL license into Russian
    2. We inserted this translation with minimal changes directly into our bilateral partnership agreement . - Now the transfer of rights to a partner is regulated by the usual bilateral agreement in Russian, understandable to Russian lawyers, judges, representatives of inspection departments, etc.
    3. As an appendix to the contract, we give the partner a CD-ROM containing the source code of the system, which is signed by the CEO of the company (directly with a marker for CD-ROMs)
    4. We are ready to conclude such a partnership agreement (with explicit transfer of the code on a physical medium) with any Russian company using our system

    This solved the problem.

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