Open Source Enforcement Actions - What Can You Expect When There is a Knock on Your Door (and How Can You Prepare)?

Open Source Enforcement Actions - What Can You Expect When There is a Knock on Your Door (and How Can You Prepare)?
05/23/2007, 11:00 AM - 11:50 AM

Speakers:
Adam G Cohn, Asst. General Counsel, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Jason Haislmaier, Partner, Holme Roberts & Owen LLP.
Cristy Hamley, Asst. General Counsel, Trolltech, Inc.

what are enforcement actions?
- often start with informal inquiries
- not allot of rules of civil procedures, more a negotiation
- focus is often on enforceability
- typically kept quite (although not by NDA)
- not lon gin duration
- enforcement/defense can end up being costly
- big mistake is to focus on the license, not much case law, community beliefs important in understand the license
- willingness to work on issues is paramount, solution vary, no my way or the highway discussions
- interesting there is a lack of NDA's
Who is doing enforcement:
- community
- commercial
- fringe
- internal
Multiple 100's of actions
Both direct and indirect costs
how to respond: show respect but do not surrender
- involve management
- understand the accuser
- evaluate
- understand obligations
- decide negotiating points
- seek to work collaboration
- open dialog
- assume all disclosed proprietary info can/will become public
Best Practices:
- treat like SEC action
- understand accuser/target
- develop relationship/dialogue
- gestures and good faith matter, compliance required, very practical

Some questions i have:
- where are the community lessons learned website references
- what guidelines are given to developers
- what does a compliance program look like

fyi interesting paper here from one of the speakers:
CLOSING THE OPEN SOURCE COMPLIANCE GAP
Best Practices for Developing Open Source Compliance Programs