Intersection: Law, Business and the Community
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A speech delivered to the audience of the Open Source workshop at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo on the 21st of February 2012.
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Intersection: Law, Business and the Community
- 1. Intersection: Law, business and the community Shane Martin Coughlan
- 2. Our Subject How FOSS legal communities around the world have emerged or are emerging, and how these work in practice
- 3. Basic Proposition FOSS can be used, studied, shared and improved Everyone can work off flexible shared platforms
- 4. Natural Progression Collaboration is key We need to collaborate effectively
- 5. Powered By Licenses The licenses provide common rules for this collaboration
- 6. This Results In A Simple Outcome To get the most from FOSS, people have to understand and follow the licenses
- 7. It Follows That... The sharing of legal knowledge is as important as the sharing of software to maintain the ecosystem
- 8. Challenges There are two key challenges to address: Copyright issues Patent issues (Trademarks have been solved)
- 9. The Global Situation - Background Copyright lawsuits in Europe and the USA Patent lawsuits globally
- 10. Case Study: USA Linux Foundation runs Member Counsel meetings that allow legal experts to discuss issues and share knowledge around addressing them Open Invention Network was formed to deal with patent concerns
- 11. Case Study: Europe The European Legal Network helps 280 stakeholders collaborate across 4 continents It runs private mailing lists, special interest groups and conferences to share knowledge
- 12. Case Study: Taiwan The Open Source Software Foundry gives support and legal advice to help companies use FOSS A new legal network modeled on the European Legal Network is also being prepared for launch
- 13. Case Study: Korea NIPA is collaborating with KOSS Law Center and FSFE to develop governance activities KOSS is building a legal network and launching an international conference to share knowledge A new initiative has been launched called Intellectual Discovery to deal with patents
- 14. Case Study: Japan Linux Foundation Japan is preparing to launch a series of workshops and articles addressing FOSS legal issues
- 15. How Legal Communities Work In practice, legal communities provide informal knowledge-sharing and support around issues This has proven suitable for addressing knowledge-gaps around copyright concerns The patent situation is different, and a handful of patent organizations deliver proactive support
- 16. Moving Forward Copyright and trademark issues around FOSS are largely understood, though not fully addressed Patent issues are more vulnerable to third party influence, and present a larger challenge
- 17. Conclusion We will see an increase in the development of legal communities to share knowledge, and an increase in shared solutions to issues However, there will be costs associated with the internal and external stresses applied due to FOSS becoming a mainstream technology
- 18. Licensing These slides are copyright © Shane Coughlan 2009 - 2012. They are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License