Open source spokesperson and former Debian project leader Bruce Perens spoke at LinuxWorld about legal issues that could impact the work of embedded developers.

Perens painted a near future portrait of an Open Source world where litigation from companies such as SCO becomes commonplace, and unprepared developers are frequently forced to cede their copyrights and development rights to software patent holders simply because these developers are unprepared to litigate.

Perens called for developers to adopt a license with in-built mutual defense clauses. Said Perens, “I am calling for all Open Source projects to incorporate mutual software patent defense terms into their licenses. Under these terms, if one Open Source developer is sued for patent infringement, all of the licenses of Open Source software used by the plaintiff terminate. If people are going to pursue us with software patents, the least we can do is make sure they don't profit from our software.”

According to Perens, a mutual defense license is currently being drafted by Larry Rosen of the Open Source Initiative. Resistance is expected to come from the Free Software Foundation, which historically has resisted efforts to add any further licensing restrictions.

Perens also chastised some Open Source companies for “jumping headlong into the Microsoft model” citing Red Hat Advanced Server an an example of a proprietary open source model in agreement with the letter but disagreement with the spirit of free software. Said Perens, “Red Hat wouldn't ever really become another Microsoft, and I don't really like to compare the two companies in the same sentence. But the point is that companies are discarding an important part of the Open Source model without realizing what benefits they are going to lose.”

Perens wrapped up by noting with dismay that software tool makers are still often penalized for the actions of unscrupulous end users, noting that playing a DVD in a computer running Linux remains illegal, even if you have paid for and own the DVD. He then fielded questions, including a number from IT professionals and systems developers who had deployed mixtures of open and proprietary software and were concerned about the ramifications of that.

A transcript of Perens' speech is available here.

 
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