Open source developers: protect yourself or face the music

In a presentation at Linux.conf.au 2004 in Adelaide, specialist Australian IT lawyer Jeremy Malcolm said that while it was widely anticipated in the open source community that SCO's lawsuit against IBM for alleged copyright infringement would eventually collapse, the case had drawn attention to the relative lack of control over copyright and patent infringement within many projects.

"The open source community has been quite lucky not to suffer an attack like SCO has brought sooner," Malcolm said.

SCO is expected to release details of the code it says has been illegally included in Linux on January 23. However, the trial is not due to take place until April 11 2005. "In between those two dates, there's a lot of uncertainty for the open source community," Malcolm commented.

One of the biggest potential risks for developers is unwitting infringement of patents. "The fact that you don't copy any code doesn't necessarily clear you," Malcolm said. "You have to honour patents that you may not even have heard of."

To ensure that development projects don't fall apart over legal concerns, Malcolm recommends ensuring contributing developers sign a document certifying that their contributions are original.

"The best protection for an open source project against liability is to make the developers the ones who have the liability on their shoulders," he said. Developers who have worked for former employers on software and later decide to contribute to similar open source projects should also seek permission from those employers to avoid potential issues, Malcolm added.

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1. Patent laws were invented to encourage and enable innovation. They are now being used to stifle it. Developers have to be aware of every patent relating to software technique? Even if they have independently come up with the same solution? Surely that wou Anonymous -- 16/01/04

   Patent laws were invented to encourage and enable innovation. They are now being used to stifle it. Developers have to be aware of every patent relating to software technique? Even if they have independently come up with the same solution? Surely that would put the original patent in the category of "obvious solution".
   Commercial interests are behind this sort of bullshit. The legal institution has become a cancer on the scoiety it is meant to serve, and by delaying the SCO case they have enabled the SCO parasites to lever the maximum FUD gains from it. shame on SCO, shame on the legal business. Open Source threatens immoral profits. Freedom threatens power. </rant>

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2. What ? and the right of author ?? justice and law is not a WEAPON for lawyers to steal money. there already many laws to protect intellectual properties of developers. developers in opensource development KEEP their Anonymous -- 18/01/04

   What ?
   
   and the right of author ??
   
   justice and law is not a WEAPON for lawyers to steal money.
   
   there already many laws to protect intellectual properties of developers.
   
   developers in opensource development KEEP their own right on their OWN code.
   
   no need to annoy us with your blatant speech to increase process and waste of time.
   
   your position is completely OUT of the world. out of the technology field and the REAL works did for 20 YEARS !!!
   
   20 years. not 2 days or not 2 years.
   
   _20_ , no one bother to wait for you. and the sco case is showing only one thing : opensource is real, opensource is for a looong time, opensource is not the contrary of author's right or copyright (it's its friend ) and opensource is also the will to remove the constraints of IT lawyers, complicated contracts or monopolitist secret.
   
   and please, go to participate in developers communities.
   go to read the ML
   the usenet
   go to participate longly to learn the realities.
   
   and please read the history of computer science, who did the work, who did not, go to read source code, go to read logs of computers, mails in gnu, bsd, or linux communities. there are not secrets, you can follow WHO _did_ a source code.
   
   people are not anonymous.

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3. No need to worry. SCO is highly likely lose its court case on Friday, January 23. I would sit tight and tune into this website next week to see SCO news Anonymous -- 18/01/04

   No need to worry. SCO is highly likely lose its court case on Friday, January 23. I would sit tight and tune into this website next week to see SCO news

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4. Copyright laws were created to protect published content. I still fail to understand how the proprietary closed source sofware companies can stretch copyright to cover unpublished source code, because they only publish the compiled code (which is protecte Anonymous -- 23/01/04

   Copyright laws were created to protect published content. I still fail to understand how the proprietary closed source sofware companies can stretch copyright to cover unpublished source code, because they only publish the compiled code (which is protected). This leaves them the ability to make any claim they like about the unpublished source code (and who actually has the copyright to it), as well as the ability to hide pirated code in a compiled format and sell it as their own.

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5. I believe SCO won't care very much if it is unsuccessful in its case against Linux vendors. Look at the publicity they are creating. No amount of money can generate so much attention as a lame lawsuit. Anonymous -- 25/01/04

   I believe SCO won't care very much if it is unsuccessful in its case against Linux vendors. Look at the publicity they are creating. No amount of money can generate so much attention as a lame lawsuit.

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   1. thats right Anonymous -- 03/05/07

      yes you are very right i agree 100% with you there, you should not let anyone get on your back

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6. it is all a lie Anonymous -- 03/05/07

   i dont think this is true i think this is a load of crap

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