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/dev/lawyer

>> law, technology, and the space between

All content by Kyle E. Mitchell, who is not your lawyer.

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Open Source

  1. Freemium the Registry

    Laurie Voss on an open source funding model

  2. Provisional Guidance for Users of LLM-Based Code Generators

    available intuition for avoiding big risks

  3. Open Source When We Say So

    still stronger claims of self-authority in OSI’s new AI “definition”

  4. Open Source Company as Costco

    parallels weak and strong

  5. Not The Same Security Debate

    open source security today is different in kind

  6. Blue Oak Contributor License

    it’s just a license

  7. Copyleft Intolerance and the Defining-Open Mind Trap

    forgetting licensing history past, we fail to repeat our successes

  8. Unlimited Indemnity for Unpaid Developers?

    James Bottomley on liability, politics, and forgotten boilerplate

  9. Real and Imagined CLA Overreach

    CLAs go wrong when they act like hiring terms

  10. This Rich To Open Source

    neglected Torvalds straight-talk on how great software gets made, and by who

  11. MicroHub Sponsorplace

    one software store, many corporate faces

  12. Open Market for Open Software

    coders who can’t afford to do open source will revolutionize software

  13. Notice by Hyperlink

    can’t we just link to the licenses file for our JavaScript?

  14. Trademark Undefined Behavior

    the awkward hole in free and open IP

  15. EULAs Aren’t Inherently Evil

    proprietary done right can beat free and open for users

  16. FOSS Fundraiser for Ukraine?

    donors ask questions, panel of licensing lawyers answers

  17. The Open Source Initiative Did Not Win Neo4j v. PureThink

    everywhere it looks, OSI sees itself, and in triumph

  18. Switching Open Software Terms

    yes, you can switch from MIT to something else

  19. You And Whose GitHub?

    Russian tech source reports state mulling GitHub clone

  20. MIT for Noncommercial is Broken

    use a real noncommercial software license

  21. Payability, Form, and Substance

    getting company to pay you isn’t just about a legal entity

  22. AWS Contributor Licensing Blurb

    another mutation from the cauldron of CLA angst

  23. Single CLA

    taking back contributor licensing for developers

  24. Blue Oak Open Software Licensing Primer

    Theory of Operation, updated and expanded

  25. L. Peter Deutsch and Stig Hackvän

    cooperation, licensing, and money in 1998

  26. The Developer Certificate of Origin is Not a Contributor License Agreement

    dispelling magical DCO thinking to reveal the system below

  27. Creative Commons’ 2021-2025 Strategy

    a scene stalwart turns “ethical”

  28. Drafter’s Anxiety

    writing new licenses isn’t scary

  29. The Luck of Open Source

    open source without great men

  30. Sell Babel 8

    ask for the money you need so people can actually pay it

  31. Open Gaming Deja Vu

    a clear-eyed view of open from 1999

  32. You Can Still Use the Software

    Justin Colannino on what’s up with new software licenses

  33. The Origin of the “MIT License”

    how did those famous terms come about?

  34. Cross License Foundations

    decentralized stewardship of collaborative projects

  35. Code Credit License 1.0.0

    a code-for-credit software license

  36. Open Licensing Attacks on Specific Business Models

    an incomplete list

  37. Compliance Industrial Pulpit

    someone tell the enterprise about Open Source 2.0

  38. Where are the Goalposts?

    in response to Luis Villa on SSPL and OSI

  39. Reading AGPL

    a guided introduction for first-timers

  40. Open Source is Discrimination

    that’s the point, or at least it used to be

  41. Righteous, Expedient, Wrong

    OSI swings at Elastic, misses, and leaves a mess

  42. ml5.js Takes a Stand

    a code of conduct with teeth, in the wild

  43. Deprogramming the Programmer

    throw off your jargon and be free

  44. The War on License Notices

    managing uncertainty at the fringes of open licensing

  45. How Congress Sees Open Source

    a view from outside

  46. Copyright Notices Begone

    pointless costs of ancient licenses

  47. From Justice With Love

    the antitrust division groks open source strategy

  48. Mix Many Metaphors

    analogies galore in Oracle v. Google oral argument

  49. Oracle v. Google Oral Argument

    major league copyright lawyering at bat

  50. The Ethical Consequences of Our Collective Activities

    professional ethics as the missing root of entitlement?

  51. Working in Public

    now comes the coder-celebrity

  52. A Modest Trademark Proposal

    banish them from permissive open source

  53. Programmer Power

    prying open “software freedom”

  54. Anything to Everyone

    “defund the police” through the lens of “open source”

  55. Narrative Error

    that’s my hero story, and I’m sticking to it

  56. Free & Open Picture Book

    a conundrum in four panels

  57. Round Robin 1.0.0

    ready for the field

  58. Round Robin License

    new name, new terms, same great idea

  59. “Open Source” Is Nobody’s Property

    if OSI owned it, they wouldn’t be so touchy about it

  60. Antidote

    critical and alternative views on free and open source software

  61. Common-Pool Pushovers

    Elinor Ostrom without boundaries

  62. Locked-In Customers Anonymous

    stop buying software from assholes

  63. Site of Shame

    if you can’t negotiate, castigate?

  64. Sharetribe Community Public License 1.0, Line by Line

    another everything-but-SaaS license

  65. CERN OHL-S 2.0, Line by Line

    the open share-alike hardware license we actually need now?

  66. Medtronic’s PB560 Ventilator License, Line by Line

    medical device company devises copyleft license

  67. Open Source for Business 3e

    new edition of an oft-recommended book

  68. Sustain Podcast

    business models, licenses, role playing

  69. Name Calling Isn’t Precise

    “neo-closed” will come and go

  70. Copyleft Has No Posse

    war is over, want it or not

  71. This Mess We’re In

    ethics, open source, and free riding

  72. Data Under Universal Share-Alike

    limits on effective data copyleft

  73. Reduce, Reuse, Reconsider

    if you wish to make a great hacker from scratch, let them reimplement the universe

  74. Scratch Other People’s Itches

    achieve more meaning and feel less alone

  75. Copyleft Should be Scary

    if the virus wasn’t scary, would we wash out hands?

  76. Open Source Should Come With Warranties

    (from the companies who use it)

  77. What did I just agree to?

    Marc Jones on oddities in OSI-approved licenses

  78. Luis Villa’s Licensing Year in Review

    harassment made the list, and should have

  79. Few-Maintainer Projects

    reality-driven expectations

  80. Renaming API Copyleft

    naming for purpose, not implementation

  81. API Copyleft 2.0.0-pre.1

    bringing the best of Parity to API Copyleft

  82. The Main Event

    Amazon versus Startups and the New York Times

  83. npm fund

    new subcommand and metadata standard

  84. Talking Points: Ethical Licenses

    collecting points and counterpoints

  85. Venture Capital Shill

    scapegoating free software’s failures

  86. MulanPSL

    a new riff on the Apache patent bargain from China

  87. Heather Meeker on “Ethos Licensing”

    free and open is ethos licensing, too

  88. “BSD with PATENTS” and “BSD-2-Clause Plus Patent” are Not the Same

    similar licenses, very different receptions

  89. Love this License

    law brut with ASCII art

  90. Blue Oak Test Suite

    test cases for new public licenses

  91. Blue Oak Reading List

    reading list for lawyers new to open source

  92. Cross-License Collaboratives

    decentralizing contributor license agreements

  93. Standards, Patents, Open Source

    towards constructive collaboration across practice communities

  94. Blue Oak Guidance on Mergers and Acquisitions

    please stop paying me so much to fix reps and warranties

  95. No LICENSE

    they won’t see your funding plea if they never look

  96. Our Ethics, Not Yours

    in defense of Seth Vargo and morality-first licenses

  97. The Tyranny of Time

    licensing gives developers much-needed flexibility

  98. Open Core is Not a Good Story

    three better ways to express yourself and your company

  99. Open Legal Podcast?

    considering an open legal podcast

  100. Is this conference a good idea?

    forthcoming talk at a conference

  101. The Great Open Source Shake-Up

    more mandatory reading from Kate Downing

  102. Changeblog

    a few thoughts on a friend’s podcast appearance

  103. Require Credit For Your Software

    a general-purpose legal tool to require credit for open work

  104. Get In, Get Out

    open source advice for new programmers breaking into the industry

  105. Dark Arts at Daybreak

    the end of club rule in open source law

  106. Operating Environment

    essential industry background for reading open software licenses

  107. SSPL Was Not Commons Clause

    how open licensing blew its biggest opportunity of the 2010s

  108. Mortarboard Licenses

    graduate to new public license terms

  109. Schools of Cohesion

    exploring the crosswise policy biases we learn from open software

  110. Tyranny of Permissionlessness

    open source’s narrow focus further empowers those with other ways to exclude

  111. Don’t Rely on OSI Approval

    activist approval does not track practical needs

  112. AFL-3.0 versus OSL-3.0

    a redline (diff) with important network terms highlighted

  113. #wontfix

    endorsements can’t fix the Open Source Definition

  114. Calls to Sustainability Action via package.json

    a new proposal, schema, and tools

  115. Enterprise Ready Open Software License Supplement

    the status quo, plus money for devs

  116. Stairway to Heaven

    repairing broken steps to software license Nirvana

  117. The Diachronic Treadmill License

    automatically reward supporters with copyleft exceptions

  118. License Utopia

    just four licenses for all of open source

  119. Ethical Subcommons Starter Kit

    bringing openness to software of moral concern

  120. Weak or Strong is Wrong

    towards selective or consistent copyleft

  121. Deprecation Notice: MIT and BSD

    it’s time to retire thirty-year-old academic licenses

  122. Back to IP

    the copyright giant has a policy

  123. Indie Open Source

    developing resource for indie-ready business models

  124. Open Source Software License Reading List

    a comprehensive curriculum for new license wonks

  125. First Thoughts on the Redis Source Available License Agreement

    evident demand for license rules on API boundaries

  126. API Copyleft License 1.0.0

    first release of API-boundary copyleft form

  127. API Copyleft

    functionality, interfaces, and line drawing in a new copyleft paradigm

  128. Shared Component License

    first shot at a short, plain license in the vein of Mongo’s SSPL

  129. Outer Source

    open software by closed methods

  130. Apache-2.0 versus ECL-2.0

    a redline (diff) showing substantive changes

  131. Open Source is Not About You

    a minimal, functionalist view of open source

  132. Open Handicaps

    Did permissive used to advantage open work like copyleft does today?

  133. Selective Openness

    making money by choosing what to give away

  134. The Open Source Definition as Copyleft Regulation

    an in-depth review of commonly cited criteria

  135. The Copyleft Bust Up

    loopholes, licenses, and realpolitik in open source

  136. How to Speak Copyleft

    the missing vocabulary of copyleft design

  137. Elsewhere: Mapping Open Business Models

    crosspost from the License Zero blog

  138. Seeking Comment: Copyright Notice Recommendation

    first stab at a pragmatic best-practice guide

  139. Indirect Licensing

    dispensing software licenses in the Internet era

  140. Contributor Councils

    relicensing without foundation, BDFL, or unanimity

  141. Patents for Software Freedom

    gun-shy insurgents and the heavy weapons of IP law

  142. Bilking Angels

    celestial finance for earth-bound developers

  143. Crowd Hiring

    assurance contracts for short-term open software maintenance

  144. Quick Read of Tidelift’s Lifting Agreement

    nits picked in the developer terms for a new pay-the-devs company

  145. Private Changes in Free Software Copyleft Licenses

    Where’s the fifth freedom?

  146. Enforce Open Source Licenses with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

    takedown power for DIY developers

  147. Unhappy Coincidences

    marriages of licensing convenience, and changed circumstances

  148. Selective Mythology

    defining open source for fun and profit, in the shadow of the enterprise

  149. The Posterity Public License

    a strong-attribution open source license

  150. MPL-2.0 versus OPL-2.1

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  151. Licence Libre du Québec – Réciprocité versus - Réciprocité forte

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  152. CLAs are Not a Sham

    licensing with friends, improved and improving

  153. Debian Free Software Guidelines versus the Open Source Definition

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  154. Mercenary Rapport

    moral blindness in open source on social media

  155. Unsustainability at Scale

    today’s tools for yesterday’s problems tomorrow

  156. Feed this Bear

    indie coder, promote thyself!

  157. Overkill

    doing IP law wrong, and getting away with it

  158. The License Zero Manifesto

    sustainable software in the open

  159. Null Value

    against demise of the hacker public license

  160. Switchmode Developer Agreement

    an open form contract for open source contractors

  161. Open Software Service Terms

    legal terms for paid web apps, now available in the English language

  162. It’s Not About Community

    another view of Open Source

  163. Open Source: Theory of Operation

    a short, practical guide to open source software for programmers at work

  164. Open Source License Business Perception Report

    the pain and confusion of common open licenses, roughly quantified

  165. Against Legislating the Nonobvious

    short-order feedback on the default contributor license in GitHub’s draft terms of service

  166. The Mendicant Maintainerati

    no holy fools for Open Source

  167. The MIT License, Line by Line

    171 words every programmer should understand

  168. I Don’t Want to Know What “Open Source” Means

    I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all on GitHub.

  169. License from Who?

    Safe open-source licensing means more than a LICENSE file.

  170. The Berneout Pledge

    Sucks less than CLAs!

  171. First Read: The Fair Source License

    Text and my first thoughts on a new, non-open source form license

  172. Startup Unix

    An open legal operating system for start-up technology companies

  173. React Patent Redline

    Changes to Facebook’s patent grant for React, Flux, Immutable, &c.

  174. Blind Patches

    What if open-source contributors could submit patches anonymously and choose to claim credit later?