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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.

7 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Too late. by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    IBM could have used these guys against SCO and saved a fortune.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  2. It's a great start by winkydink · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:It's a great start by Wordsmith · · Score: 3, Insightful

      At least if there's a major suit, there's now a dedicated staff of four to help. When America sees a DVD-Jon, these guys could come in handy.

    2. Re:It's a great start by john_anderson_ii · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm not really in the know when it comes to leagal offices, but in the medical profession there are a small army of nurses, technicians, and residents for every doctor on staff. It's probably the same thing on the law side.

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      Be Safe! Sleep with a Marine. Semper Fi!
  3. 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.

  4. what about by mottie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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/ )

  5. 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.

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