Andy Updegrove

That’s the title of the press release we issued yesterday. Given the number of conferences that are being held on open source licensing issues all the time, you might understandably wonder why we feel it’s necessary to have two more. In fact, there are some pretty good reasons, and hence this blog entry.

One reason is that most open source conferences are organized by and for lawyers, and concern themselves with the arcana of licensing, offering an infinite number of rat holes to disappear down, but not much opportunity to look for solutions, talk about strategy and get creative. Another is the fact that many of those that set up and speak at such conferences love to hang out the crepe and focus on gloom and doom. A classic example held under the auspices of the AILPA (the American Intellectual Property Law Association) in August of this year was alarmingly titled The new GNU General Public License ? A Direct Attack on Software Patents and Patent Licensing? (most of the organizers and speakers shared a certain common affiliation).

After all, it’s good for business when you’re a lawyer to make everyone think that absent high-priced counsel and careful legal supervision, your business will surely evaporate before your eyes. All too many of the topics that get talked about at such affairs are intended to perform the purpose of what we used to call an “Oh S***! article in our firm newsletter ? a story about a common mistake clients make, and that would therefore be likely to inspire a predictable number of readers to pick up the phone and give us a call.

There are other reasons that I’ll mention below, but that will give you an idea what we’re up to here. The “protect” function is a core part of the Linux Foundation’s mission, by which we mean that we’re trying to make it safe to develop, install and use Linux, whether you’re a contributor to an open source project, a distro vendor, an enterprise, or an individual desktop user. One of the ways to do that is to make sure that accurate information gets out there, that disinformation gets corrected, and that those that have a stake in Linux can get together and talk about how to nurture and grow the Linux ecosystem safely ? and that’s where lawyers actually can play a productive role.

As a result, we’ll be organizing legal conferences on a regular basis, and will be having our first legal summit in Boston at the end of October. This event will be for member in-house counsel only ? no press or bloggers (present company excluded, but I’ll not be blogging about what transpires at the meeting). That will ensure that people can discuss their concerns frankly and freely, without concern over how this comment or that might be spun by others in public for their own purposes. We’ll discuss not only today’s issues, but also what tomorrow may bring, and what we should be thinking about now to make sure that the sailing stays smooth for Linux. (Anyone that is not yet a member that wants to attend can find membership information here.)

We’ll also be talking about open standards as well as open source, and about how each needs to serve and play nicely with the other. LF is unique in being a single organization where both disciplines are of equal concern. This gives us the opportunity not only to make sure that the interaction of open source licensing terms and open standards intellectual property rights policies are optimized for the benefit of the Linux ecosystem, but also to use LF as a crucible within which the different and sometimes difficult to accommodate needs of both disciplines can be worked out for the general benefit of the open source development process.

As a result, we’ve invited our members to send staff from both the open source as well as the open standards sides of their legal teams, and the agenda and discussion topics for the meeting have been set up accordingly. Karen Copenhaver will lead the licensing discussions, and I’ll lead the standards topics, and together we’re working to set up the agenda and canvass topics of interest in advance of the meeting to be sure that we nail what needs to be discussed, given the fact that this type of group rarely, if ever, gets together in one place purpose. We’ve already got a large number of attendees signed up, and expect quite a crowd to participate, with good results to follow in consequence.

Next spring, we’ll have another summit, but this time it will be an open meeting, and we’ll reach out to everyone with an interest in the same types of issues. Once again, the focus will be proactive and forward looking, and directed at further developing a solid and safe legal infrastructure within which Linux in particular, and open source in general, can flourish. We’ll be back with further news on that event in the months ahead.