SFLC Announces a For-Profit, Open-Source Law Firm

Published: Mar 27, 2008
Updated: Feb 2, 2021
1 minute read
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If you were an open-source, non-profit developer and you needed legal help, you went to the Software Freedom Law Center. If, however, you were in the open-source business and you needed free software savvy legal help, finding a competent attorney could be a challenge. So it is that the SFLC has announced the formation of Moglen Ravicher.
This New York City-based law firm will represent select for-profit clients that support open software but aren’t otherwise eligible for SFLC’s pro bono services. Of course, there are existing law firms, such as Boston’s Gesmer Updegrove and Palo Alto, Calif.’s Carr & Ferrell, which also employ lawyers who know their way around the GPL (GNU Public License) and other open-source legal issues. The larger open-source companies, such as Red Hat, have their own in-house counsel.
Moglen Ravicher appears to be focusing on smaller open-source businesses. In a statement, Eben Moglen, founding director of SFLC, said, “We are pleased to extend the services of the Software Freedom Law Center to companies that support software freedom.”

Read the full article on Linux-Watch.com.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols

I'm editor-at-large for Ziff Davis Enterprise. That's a fancy title that means I write about whatever topic strikes my fancy or needs written about across the Ziff Davis Enterprise family of publications. You'll find most of my stories in Linux-Watch, DesktopLinux and eWEEK. Prior to becoming a technology journalist, I worked at NASA and the Department of Defense on numerous major technological projects.

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