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FOSDEM 2012 : Legal Issues DevRoom : CFP

Please note: the CFP is now CLOSED

This is the Call for Participation in the FOSDEM 2012 Legal Issues DevRoom

Call for Participation DEADLINE 30 December
Submit your proposal as an email to fosdem-legal@faif.us (see example here).

This Legal and Policy issues DevRoom is designed to cover topics of Free Software licensing and legal policy well beyond the basic issues. Attendees should be aware of the basics of copyright, copyleft, licensing, and patents. The goal for this DevRoom is to foster in-depth discussion about complex policy, legal and licensing issues that face the software freedom community today.

Proposals are sought for talks, panel discussions, and guided discussion groups that can investigate these sorts of issues.

Any proposal topic fitting the above description is welcome, but might include:

  • Copyleft licensing models and how they relate to business models. Are there some business models that are license-permissible but bad for community building? On the other side, does your license choice limit or expand your community?

  • Copyleft enforcement and compliance planning from a developer perspective. What is the future of GPL enforcement? Is it working? What is its impact on adoption of copyleft?

  • Copyleft license compatibility. What are the challenges of code base merges when various licenses are in use? How does a compatibility analysis between licenses work?

  • Is GPLv2-only vs. GPLv2-or-later bifurcating the copyleft communities?

  • Copyright assignment and contributor license agreements. What are the issues to consider as a project and as a developer?

As each talk will only be 30 min (including setup and brief Q/A), it is highly advisible to define a set of terms and create a set of links giving background information to your subject. Attendees will be encouraged to review this prerequisite material to be well prepared to jump right in to your material.

We have a one hour panel with all the speakers for general Q/A at the end of the day. This will be an unique opportuntity to dive deeply into the interesting issues uncovered during the day.

It is highly unlikely that video gear will be available to cover this event, but please indicate in your submission if you are willing to be video recorded.

For more background Legal Issues DevRoom please check out the latest Free as in Freedom oggcast.