I'm about to enter into the IP world as a real grown up - so I always love articles that put some pragmatic sense to values I believe in, such as open source software. I think that I will have an opportunity to try some work in the IP management area so I naturally wanted to check into some open source software licenses to see what was going on behind the scenes. I stumbled across this article on how an open source initiative could spin back some coin. I talk with some up and coming computer programmers and they usually have general questions and concerns about protecting their ideas from the big guns and NDA's etc. - I always tell them what I know and then throw down "If the company you are pitching doesn't buy then release it under an open source license" - at least that way you can have a bit of a sword against them taking off with it and dented their profitability who would buy when you get it for free elsewhere- as open source is my defn open for the sharing [note: this is not legal advice]
well here is the article explaining how open source can still provide some income.
Here is the link to O'Reilly's OSCON convention page (the one in amsterdam that the article is talking about). It has more information for ya.
Hmm...I need to go digging up somemore stuff on this since it would be cool if I could be an adviser for a company looking to bring there code open source (since if you dig the Web 2.0 hype - and I do then it would be a great lil niche for me to get into!)
About Me
- M
- I practice Canadian patent and copyright law with hi-tech subject matter. This is a web log of personal interests, and should not be taken as professional legal advice. This is not the view of my employer and again is personal. Thanks.