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Launch of First International FOSS Law Review
Graeme West writes "A group of tech lawyers has announced the release of the inaugural issue of the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review (IFOSS L. Rev.) — a place for high-level discussion of issues and best practice in the implementation of FOSS. You can view the announcement, or skip straight to Volume 1, Issue 1. A downloadable PDF file is also available. The journal is open access, and articles are CC licensed."
I think you've kind of missed the point. The "best practices" are likely more related to how you need to cover your ass to avoid being sued for IP issues or how to file your own patents if you're interested. It makes sense if you think about it. While businesses are trying to build up their software patent portfolios open source projects often ignore this side of things. While you may not be interested in filing patents the minefield will only get bigger over time and it helps when a group of lawyers is throwing out some friendly advice on how to stay out of trouble.
As someone living in France, where law is created by representatives and not judges, I would like to respectfully disagreee on the 'people being less likely to get abused by the legal system' when law come fro the legislative power. You just look at what's going through our reps at this time, mostly dealing with intellectual property. Basically, the HADOPI laws are designed by the executive power, with tacit acceptance, if not approval, of the legislative power, to actually evade control by the judicial power; and this is not because the judicial power would be unfair to the citizen: that's because the judicial power would bar the administration (thus the executive power) from assuming citizen guilty and stamping on their right for fair trial, freedom of speech and privacy. And this is not a dangerous activist saying so; this is the Conseil Constitutionnel, the very institution whose mission is to ensure that french laws respect the french Constitution.
The paper seem to focus on case law.
Actually, there's only one case law report in the journal. Out of the main articles, only Lawrence Rosen's article could be said to rely primarily on case law.
Yeah, I know that even something that only involves two countries could be called "international"
If you take a look at the current make-up of the Editorial Committee, you'll see that it is truly international. The Committee works on a rotating basis, so it'll always have a diverse make-up.