The Open Source Alternative: Understanding Risks and Leveraging Opportunities

Preface

In the late 1990s, working as a lawyer in a technology licensing practice, I found more and more of my clients using software provided under a very unusual license. My colleagues at the time advised clients to avoid this kind of software, because although this software was free of charge, it was likely to infringe intellectual property rights and so the risk of using it was too high. Clients, however, presented with tempting morsels of ready-to-use, tested, free software, and pressed by product release deadlines, do not tend to follow that kind of advice. So, by necessity, I began learning about this kind of free software. I had to advise clients about how to use that software, while managing rather than eliminating the risks. This is how I was thrown into the swimming pool of open source.

This book is the result of some 10 years working on open source legal issues. It is intended to be a practical guide for lawyers and businesspersons who wish to understand the legal issues surrounding open source software licensing. The law of open source is complex and constantly changing. Those called upon to make decisions about open source will find little to guide them in traditional legal materials. There is virtually no case law on many crucial open source legal issues, and the relevant copyright statutes have barely begun to account for computer software itself, much less open source.

Because this book is intended to inform both lawyers and businesspersons, it goes into only moderate ...