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This is the second episode from the series, “The Faces of Open Source Law,” by Shane Martin Coughlan. The series puts a face to the vibrant open source community, and the fascinating discussions happening within it, through a series of interviews that we’ll be sharing here. This first “season” focuses on issues related to law…

Should you donate money to the open source projects you use? Or is there a better way to help? Your business most likely depends on open source software. But are you playing your part to make sure it will still be there in the future? For that to happen, the projects where it is both…

A few weeks ago we learned about some great work underway by Shane Martin Coughlan: putting a face to the vibrant open source community, and the fascinating discussions happening within it, through a series of interviews—we thought we’d share them here in a new series. “I’ve been enjoying ‘The Faces of Open Source Law.’ It’s…

Open Source and Public Domain are frequently confused. Here’s why it’s a mistake to treat the two terms as synonyms. Plenty of people assume that public domain software must be open source. While it may be free software within your specific context, it is incorrect to treat public domain software as open source or indeed…

You feel slighted by a comment on a mailing list, or a forum post has failed to be moderated live. How should you react? A recent exchange on a user forum caught my eye, one that’s typical of many user interactions with open source communities. Someone with a technical question had apparently had the answer…

Individual judgment about the presence of software freedom in a license is not the same as community consensus expressed through OSI approval. Does it really matter if a copyright license is OSI Approved or not? Surely if it looks like it meets the benchmark that’s all that matters? I think that’s the wrong answer, and…