Open Source Summit + ELC Europe 2018

Open source licensing benefits from de facto standardization. Most open source software is covered by a small set of non-customized, widely used licenses. Up to a point, this standardization reduces uncertainty around license interpretation, encourages adoption of open source software, and allows licenses to function as "constitutions of communities".

But this same standardization also means open source licenses operate as shared legal resources, which gives rise to certain risks when the licenses are examined by courts. This talk will explain those risks, which center around the danger that a few individuals can have an outsized adverse impact on large license-using communities, owing to inherent limitations in judicial systems.

This talk will also discuss ways in which legal and developer communities can protect shared open source license resources, several of which are currently underway.