A Legal Center to Protect Freedom in Software

The Software Freedom Law Center will provide "legal representation and other law related services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software." (Here are more details from today's Mercury News.)

We need something like this for grassroots journalism.

Comments

[Kirk]

I'm happy but not surprised. I'm working on an open source driving simulator and Lawrence Lessig offered to help with legal troubles we might have with licensing. This really is a big issue. Sometimes our team has long, convoluted discussions wondering if we'll be sued when we should be writing code. The strangest and nicest thing I've run into while working in the Open Source community is the fact that people that probably don't have time to reply to emails still do.

[Joe I.]

Kirk, you will only be sued if you are using some one else's work without their permission. If so ask and they may grant a free license if you aren't going to make money from your simulator. If not you would have to find another solution or pay something. Good luck either way.

I support open source even though I use the Mac (the most closed platform even though they use open source in the OS themselves) yet I found it funny that you spend time in meetings talking about these issues and not doing the coding. I have consulted to a few companies looking at open source and when they look at the time spent on issues like this as well as lawyers to check for copyrights etc. and then the time to integrate something and find supported hardware in the end they say we should have just used Unix or Windows....Sad in some ways but true.

[Owen]

Joe, increasingly we need to distinguish between getting sued (which requires no merit or support of facts or law) and winning a suit. For too many small businesses, the threat of an expensive legal action by a deep-pockets competitor is enough to stop them from product introductions, marketplace exploration or even standing up for their rights. Winning a suit may bankrupt the business as surely as losing.

In law as elsewhere, gold equals might and might makes right.

[Elisa Mc Eachrane]

The sight is informative. However, I would like if you can give me tips on becoming a better journalist and writer for the international market.