TODAY: Symposium on Current Trends in FOSS Movements

[Bill Sconce]

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 22:19:12 -0800 (PST)
Jeff Smith <jsmith at alum.mit.edu> wrote:

> thanks for the report (& post to Groklaw).  Overall great
> wrapup.  Did you get to the other talks?  

You're welcome.  Yes, I was there for the whole day.


> My comments below  (IANAL, recognize you're just reporting,
> etc) -
...
> > 3. "Working with Open Source Software Compliance
> > Management", Karen Copenhaver, Black Duck Software
>
> Did she argue that they should track compliance & do
> due-diligence on ALL their licenses?  

She surely did.  Of course her interests are that of a company
which want to make money giving advice about licensing.  But my
impression was that she "gets it", and that the overall message
was positive for Free software.  In fact, the whole symposium
felt positive in that respect.  (Hm.  Since lawyers charge by
the hour, giving advice about the GPL is just as good as giving
advice about EULAs.)

Perhaps that's the best message from the symposium:  that all
of the speakers treated the GPL as seriously as any license.
(There was NO mention of "challenging" the license basis of
Free software.)

It was interesting, in fact, that the message from lawyers to
potential infringers was severe:  fail to respect the GPL, and
your "due dilegence" for an IPO will take you down in flames.
So the enforcement mechanism is different (no BSA Gestapo),
but the message from the legal community to corporate officers
seems to be on our side.

IANAL_Bill