Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Intellectual Property Law Blogs -> IPKat

Intellectual Property Law

: IPKat

CTLR: Open Source Summit special issue

By Jeremy

The February 2008 issue of Sweet & Maxwell's monthly Computer and Telecommunications Law Review has landed on the IPKat's desk and it's rather different from usual: this is a special issue, dedicated to the publication of the papers delivered at last year's Open Source Summit in London. This was the event, jointly sponsored by London-based law firm Olswang and its US friend Greenberg Traurig (GT), at which over 250 open source enthusiasts (and not a few cynics--though they kept a low profile) gathered to discuss, among other things, the role of open source within modern business models for software development and exploitation.

The seven discussion papers published in this issue are:

* "Innovation goes public", by Bruce Perens, a powerful speaker, a naturally creative thinker and a man who is so synonymous with the open source movement that he has all but trade marked it;

* "Origins and development of open source and GPL licensing" by Heather Meeker, a GT attorney and IP licensing academic who has a background in computer programming;

* "Key intellectual property issues in acquisitions involving open source software" by Jim Markwith -- open source software licensing counsel at Microsoft, who previously worked with Adobe. Jim also lectures at the Santa Clara University;

* "M&A, joint ventures and IPOs" by Nigel Swycher (Olswang's Open Source Unit), who masterminded the Summit;

* "Source code assessment in due diligence" by Kat McCabe (General Counsel, Black Duck Software: the IPKat is well-disposed to everyone called Kat, and this Kat has a great deal of practical and legal insight to commend her);

* "Commercial licensing models" by Jan Wildeboer (Solution Architect at Red Hat and a well known enemy of software patents);

"Open source in the mobile world" by David Wood (Executive Vice-President of Research, Symbian, and an author and commentator on software issues).

The IPKat has managed to procure a few spare copies, which he's happy to send out to the first few people who write in to request them. Please email him here and he'll let you know if you're one of the lucky few -- but remember, he can only send it if you've got a terrestrial address and a letter box ...

Full post as published by IPKat on March 04, 2008 (boomark / email).