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New Legal Center for Open Source Projects
NW writes "According to a News.com story well known OSS lawyers Lawrence Lessig and Eben Moglen are launching a new "Software Freedom Legal Center" to assist open source developers with legal issues for free." You can view the website at Softwarefreedom.org.
I wouldn't want someone like ESR or your typical Slashdotter representing them in the court :7
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Before they come out and say that they have patented the process of offering free advice like they did with Amazon and recommending books!
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
Dear François, Your IP will be treated with a deep love, as usual. IP-banning was, and will continue, due to the fact that we love both you and your IP. There's nothing related to money. Kind regards, Another one Anonymous Coward
Who's paying the lawyers to work for free ; )
sorry couldn't resist.
IBM could have used these guys against SCO and saved a fortune.
Trolling is a art,
opensource freedom is "on the march".
Eben's a great guy is certainly a David against many Goliaths. Glad to hear about the Software Freedom Law Center! He has his work cut out for him in updating the GPL as there are many IP issues that will need to get worked out with the BigCos that regularly use and/or distribute GPL'd software. Glad to see he's getting some help from people like Weitzner and Lessig (don't know Diane Peters, but I'm sure she's good).
The antidote for misuse of freedom of speech is more freedom of speech.
-- Molly Ivins
So... what's the catch?
This couldn't be all charity, or...
Though I cannot see how much trial work a staff of 4 will be able to handle. One major suit could tie them all up.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Well, I doubt it is with all free intentions. Lawyers are required to do a certain amount of probono work a year, maybe this is their segment of it? Granted it is a great idea and will help many people, I doubt they have the resources to fight lengthly big battles for OSS.
but a little legal help is better than none.
or Indian law, or Turkish law ? or British law ? or French law ? or Nepalese law ? or Danish law or or or....
or is "free software" exclusively an American thing now ?
hello Americans there is a whole world out there so stop hijacking words and understand that free software is a global thing , the sooner you get it the better for everybody
"to assist open source developers with legal issues for free"
now all we need is someone that work for free to go after people that abuse the GPL
ie: Sveasoft (http://slashdot.org/~Featureless/journal/ )
Buddie, some people doesn't understand your humor sense. Err, wait, I trapped myself talking to myself *again*. I will finish my autoconversation in other ocasion, better ran to visit the psycoanalyst. Sorry for the inconvenience. Arg! Dub dub.
Free Software Foundation founder Richard Stallman is working to update the General Public License (GPL) that governs Linux and hundreds of other open-source projects. The law center said it will help with that work.
A crucial task, in my opinion. More specifially, Stallman and co. are planning to protect GPL code better legally from the threat of patent litigation. Software patents are a relatively recent, and (in the opinion of many, including myself) harmful phenomenon. Updating the GPL to somehow lessen their potential impact on Free Software would be a major accomplishment.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Are there any legal centers for Open projects that aren't software? Has anyone even taken on a project such as an openbook or openmusic? I believe Lessig has released a book under a CC licence, but are there any others?
The first thing they should post is a detailed explanation of why nobody releases software into the public domain.
why is there a "public defender's office"... why don't they just have all defense attorneys in the public defenders pool? Your number comes up you do it no questions asked.
seems you have touched a nerve with those freedom lovers
.org is a bit ambigious
perhaps the website would be better named
http://www.softwarefreedom.us
as
so to clarify they only offer protection in USA to US developers from US legal issues
Is having Lessig on board a good thing? Has he ever won a case? I stopped following his blog after he started to wig-out over the 2004 election. And I find his message harder to relate to. Stallman, etc. are focused on *creating* new Free Software, not trying to get free access to previously copyrighted work (which seems to be the message of Lessig's two latest books). That's a much harder flag to rally around IMHO. (Yeah, I'm well aware of CC). He also seems to be to much of a do-gooder. What's the point of having a lawyer if he's not going to draw from the lawyer's little bag of dirty tricks? (There's a reason people don't like lawyers.)
done when they defend some non-GPL open source project against an alleged GPL violation.
It's a rubbish excuse for an insult at best!
Come on mods, do your job.
Wow, you're really stupid, aren't you?
I'm sorry, but at the momen of writing above comments I was a bit bored... I had the need to smile a bit.
>show equal ignorance by using "Americans"
>which applys to anyone in the western
> hemisphere seeing as how everyone there is
> in "the Americas".
Beautiful, and they say our daycares dont teach children anything.
You remind me of elementary school kids who find out that we are homo sapiens and who just have to share that knowledge.
Yes Sherlock...we know about the Americas but not knowing the context in which 99.99% of the people use 'americans' shows either astounding ignorance or youre just trying to one up the previous whiner with trivial trivia.
Bravo. Now go back to Jeopardy.
>So stop wasting your breath.
Just hold yours for a few minutes.
terry
Did anyone notice that none of the lawyers on that site have any technical experience? It's all wonderful to talk about patents from the point of view of "legal" freedoms and history, but our world is a little more complicated than that.
Yet another bunch of "Intellectual Property" lawyers that aren't even admitted to practice before the US Patents and Trademarks office.
"You show equal ignorance by using "Americans" which applys to anyone in the western hemisphere seeing as how everyone there is in "the Americas"."
Europe is generally in what is considered the "Eastern Hemisphere." Unless Europeans are working from a different definition than those of us in the Americas.
And here I thought the stereotype was that Americans didn't know geography.
Agreed, but you should also understand that most Americans come accross as if they don't.
Ah, more stereotyping. I think you are watching far too much television, rather than seeing the real world. Many Americans are idiots. So are many Europeans (I ran into one example while seeing my girlfreind off at the airport, an arrogant Dutch prick who shoved his way -- literally, by physical force -- into the queue in front of us. I would have enjoyed watching him experience the consiquences of such behavior had he done something like that on the south side of Chicago, but I digress).
Certainly we have an imbecel for president, but let's not forget that Europe has turned out its fair share of imbecellic leaders as well, and while I will grant you ours is far worse than those in Europe at this time, I doubt Europeans' intelligence suddenly tripled the moment you got rid of Margaret Thatcher, Franco, or Milosevic, nor did ours suddenly plummet when Baby Bush stole the first election and organized the dumbest of the dumb through bigotry (may Our Lord and Savior(tm) keep the gays out of the churches!) and fear ("9/11, 9/11, 9/11, terrorist, terrorist, "god bless America(tm)).
It's annoying have an ignoramous as a leader humiliating the country abroad at every turn, but I imagine you'll get to experience that in your country at some point, if you haven't already. It is an unfortunate aspect of allowing the vote of the dumbest, most ignorant person to count equally with that of the smartest, most well educated, and the fact that half the population is by defition "below average" in intelligence and knowledge of current events, and is more likely to vote how the media manipulates them than how a reasoned, thoughtful consideration of the facts would suggest.
My experience, having lived on both continents, is that by and large people are equally as knowledgable, and equally as ignorant, equally as bigoted, equally as idealistic, and equally as mistaken about those across the sea on both sides of the pond.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
cases dealing with software (ip, facilitating piracy, and patents) can be extremely complex... how much can these guys possibly handle at one time?
Get your torrents...
..Open Bar opens its doors. It's founded by current Montavista counsel Jason Wacha and ex-VA Legal VP Gwyn Murray. Mozilla's Mitchell Baker is also involved. Looks like there is finally some more activity to build a more focused effort on legal issues rather than just a lot of IANAL threads in /.