License Contracts, Free Software and Creative Commons in the United States

The United States has not enacted special provisions on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) or other alternative software licenses, with the exception of software procurement regulations, which exist at the federal, state, and local levels. There are rather few reported cases on FOSS and other alternative licenses. Moreover, these cases differ on fundamental questions of great importance, such as the interpretation of a license provision as a condition of a right to use or distribute software or as a mere promise enforceable only by damages (which may be hard to show in the case of free software), the enforceability of express license provisions terminating licenses for particular action or inaction, and on the interpretation of licenses to favor the licensor or to favor the licensee. It is also unclear if licensee becomes an “owner” of a copy of a program entitled to privileges of an “owner” under the Copyright Act

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