November 29, 2007
Open Source software: is it really a free lunch?
This evening I'm participating in a debate alongside a legal counsel from Microsoft Research, looking at the rights, obligations and intellectual property issues around Open Source software. It's organised by the Cambridge Network, and promises to be an interesting discussion ...
Technorati Tags: intellectual property, microsoft, open source, debate, software, sourcesense, uk
Posted by savs at November 29, 2007 9:05 AMI hope you're well-prepared against the classic patent-peril FUD. In particular, the notion that somehow you might be safer with proprietary than with open source software.
In real life, SCO collapsed, but Timeline secured payments in the tens of millions from end-users of Microsoft SQL software that was judged to infringe their patents. Do you know where the Softvault lawsuits against users of MS DRM stand?
Posted by: niq at November 29, 2007 11:15 AMSo they invite a lawyer from MS and you from Sourcesense? Talk about a mismatch... even if you're both on top form, you're probably going to be relatively weak on each other's specialist subjects... how did it turn out?
Posted by: MJ Ray at November 30, 2007 9:43 AM