Intellectual Property Law Week Helpful Diversity Or Hopeless Confusion?

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Intellectual Property Law Week Helpful Diversity Or Hopeless Confusion?

Intellectual Property Law Week Open Source License Proliferation: Helpful Diversity or Hopeless Confusion? Featuring Professor Robert Gomulkiewicz University of Washington School of Law Thursday, March 18, 2010 12:30-2:00 PM Moot Courtroom Abstract: One prominent issue among free and open source software (FOSS) developers (but little noticed by legal scholars) has been "license proliferation." "Proliferation" refers to the scores of FOSS licenses that are now in use with more being created all the time. The Open Source Initiative ("OSI") has certified over seventy licenses as conforming to the Open Source Definition, a key measure of whether a license embodies FOSS principles. Many believe that license proliferation encumbers and retards the success of FOSS. Why does proliferation occur? What are the pros and cons of multiple licenses? Does the growing number of FOSS licenses represent hopeless confusion (as many assume) or (instead) helpful diversity? To provide context and color, these issues are examined using the story of his creation of the Simple Public License (SimPL) and submission of the SimPL to the OSI for certification. Professor Robert Gomulkiewicz joined the UW law school faculty in 2002 to direct the graduate program in Intellectual Property Law and Policy. Prior to joining the faculty, he was Associate General Counsel at Microsoft where he led the group of lawyers providing legal counsel for development of Microsoft's major systems software, desktop applications, and developer tools software (including Windows and Office). Before joining Microsoft, Professor Gomulkiewicz practiced law at Preston, Gates & Ellis where he worked on the Apple v. Microsoft case. Professor Gomulkiewicz has published books and law review articles on open source software, mass market licensing, the UCITA, and legal protection for software. He is also the author of the Simple Public License (SimPL) which is a plain language rendering of the venerable GNU General Public License. Intellectual Property Law Week 2010 provides a platform to discuss the most timely and relevant IP issues affecting governments, companies, and individuals around the globe through a three day lunch series centered on the recent Google v. China battle. This is the final lecture of the three-day series. .

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