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What Can a Lawyer Do For Open Source?
zolltron writes "I have a friend who went to law school. He really enjoyed intellectual property law, and he seems to genuinely regret that he didn't end up as an IP lawyer. But, what's done is done, and he's not going to radically change career trajectories now. But, I think he might be interested in volunteering a little of his time if there was an interesting project he could get behind. Computer folks are always trying to figure out how to get involved in open source even if it won't be their full time job. So, now I ask you Slashdot, how can my friend use his expertise to help an open source project?"
The project which advocates open source governance has been trying over the years to coalesce into a formal organization, but desperately needs a lawyer to figure out how. A normal non-profit can just put together a board of directors and organize in their home country. But Metagovernment has two huge problems with this: first, they cannot/will-not be controlled by a small group of empowered individuals (completely goes against their core principles), and second they are explicitly not aligned with any nation or national interest. See their page on the issue: http://www.metagovernment.org/wiki/Startup/Organization
No, it is not open source software, but seeing as open source governance is derived from the principles of free and open source software, I thought it may be of interest. Especially since the need for a lawyer here is really profound.