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New Legal Center for Open Source Projects

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the fighting-the-good-fight dept.

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.

2 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. They aren't doing it for free... by hsmith · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  2. Also by spellraiser · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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