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Legal Track
Preface on Conference
Open Source is a topic that is demanding the attention of CIOs, CTOs,
and senior executives. On June 24 and 25th, the University of St. Thomas
and The Open Group will host a standards workshop in Minneapolis
for
senior business executives. This one-and-a-half day standards conference
for senior executives, comprising four panels, will feature an introduction
of the issues and follow-up with an interactive discussion between
the speakers the audience. The aim is to capture and publish the
issues that are discussed in order to raise the industry awareness of
the
benefits of Open Source. The panel sessions cover each of the Business,
Technical, Legal, and Social/Ethical Challenges Ahead.
Legal Panel Objective
The Legal Panel, moderated by Steve Nunn, COO, The Open Group will
seek to understand and capture the following about Open Source:
- Understand
licensing and distribution
- Special considerations for Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
- Link between Open Source and standards from a legal point of view
The Legal Panel will answer moderated and ad hoc questions concerning
the above and related issues as they arise through the dialogue.
Legal Panelists
Currently the status of the technical panel is:
- Lawrence E. (Larry) Rosen, Rosenlaw.com
Larry is both an attorney and a computer specialist.
- Henry W. (Hank) Jones, III, Intersect Technology
Consulting and Law Office of Henry W. Jones, III
Hank is both
an attorney and a business consultant.
- Tony Stanko,
Founding Director, The Center for Open Source & Government, and
Associate Director, Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute, The
George Washington University
- Amy Marasco, Vice
President & General
Counsel, American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
Legal Panel Agenda
The legal panel session will be approximately 2 hours in length
and follow the agenda below.
- Introduction by Steve Nunn (5 minutes max). Steve will provide
some background on the legal issues.
- Introduction of each panel member and their opening positions (5
to 10 minutes each) (50 minutes). Panelists will come up individually
and introduce themselves with greater detail and then present a few slides
that represent their principal areas of discussion, that is, licensing issues,
special IP considerations, and the link between open source and standards
- Panel
session with a mixture of moderated questions and questions
from the audience (60 minutes). Steve and the audience will
ask questions directed at all or specific panelists, including questions
such as:
- In legal terms, what does, and what does not, fall into the
category of Open Source software (for example, shareware)?
- What kind of legal roadmaps are out there—court
cases, arbitrations, and so on?
- Who decides whether an Open Source product has been handled
properly? As a corollary, how do Open Source advocates
know that someone is
breaking the rules?
- Are there any key cases that have helped define Open
Source?
- Which Open Source software license ambiguities will trigger
OSS license interpretation litigations and arbitrations?
- How soon will OSS license ambiguities be tested in litigation
(or arbitration)?
- Are there any new development sin OSS licensing terms
and conditions?
- What are the big disagreements or political issues among
Open Source advocacy groups and leaders?
- What is the nature of IP attacks issued by vendors who
feel threatened?
- What is the relationship (and differences)
between Open Source and open standards?
- Does the traditional
standards community feel threatened by Open Source, and if so,
what are they likely to do?
- Thanks and close of Panel Session (5 minutes max)
- Summary readout and discussion (30 minutes on day 2). Where Steve
will summarize the key points and observations from the
discussion to provoke a discussion on next steps between the panelists and audience.
Legal Panel Participant Requirements
Panelists should send presentations for their specific introduction
and their opening positions. The presentations should
be designed for 5 to
10 minutes. It is recommended that at least 4 slides
be provided:
- Introduction slide for the panelist
- Slide outlining biggest concerns
in their topic area
- Slide summarizing status of key issues in their
topic area
- Slide projecting next steps and/or emerging issues
All the presentations will be preloaded in a master presentation
and run from a single PC.
We also encourage the positions be supported
by a short paper that would be posted, with attribution,
along
with proceedings.
At the
minimum,
we request an abstract of the presentation for
the
proceedings. Please note:
The proceedings will be made publicly available
at no charge.
All panelists are encouraged to attend the full
event, especially to participate in the summary
discussion
on the second day.
Finally, we encourage panelists to send questions
that you think should be brought forth – either
to reinforce pints that you wish to raise, or
to seek
the views of other
panelists.
We
cannot
guarantee
to cover
all questions, but will do our best.
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