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Legal Summits to Tackle Linux

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the open-to-suggestions dept.

An anonymous reader writes "BuilderAU has the story that the Linux Foundation, custodians of the Linux trademark, have announced that they will host two summits to deal with legal issues surrounding Linux and open-source software. Attendance at the first summit will be restricted to members of the Linux Foundation and their legal counsel. The second summit — an open meeting — will be held in Autumn 2008 where legal experts from any background will be able to attend."

3 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The foundation owns only the trademark by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Linus made Linux in the first place. It's his baby. He should be able to take it wherever he wants, whether you or I like it. The first place was a long time ago. The first release of Linux was about 10K lines of code; about half the amount of code that I have released so far this year as Free Software (not to Linux, so I have no personal stake in this). Since then, he hasn't exactly done nothing, but his contributions are dwarfed by the large number of other people who have contributed. He can do whatever he wants irrespective of what I want, but I don't think he should ignore the hundreds of other people who who have written the code that makes the kernel what it is today.
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  2. Re:Against the spirit... by Enderandrew · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You're honestly suggesting that Google, HP, IBM and Novell don't contribute code?

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  3. Taking things seriously by JeremyGNJ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's nice to see the Linux Foundation taking things seriously.

    Despite what the board-posting-fanboy-home-users say on slashdot, the legal ramifications of Linux are a serious concern to businesses adopting it. If they aren't nailed down and addressed, then it will continue to be the preferred OS of Mom's basement.

    In the end I think that the outcome will be playing nicer with closed-source and allowing a certain amount of concession. The question is: Is the community mature enough to handle that?