A few years ago, the idea that savvy developers and IT professionals would need to know anything about intellectual property law would have been dismissed as a bad joke.
Oh, certainly, there were arguments from time to time over fine points in the GPL Version 2, but for the most part, it didnt matter.
Then along came SCO with its lawsuit against IBM and its challenges to the legality of Linux, and everything changed.
So its good news that the SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center), a group of lawyers that provides pro bono legal services to protect and advance FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software), announced on July 18 that it would be hosting the first Legal Summit for Software Freedom on Oct. 12.
In 2007, its not just attorneys who need to know the basics of IP law.