FOSS and the Labyrinthine Land of Licensing

"The open source More about open source movement may well have gotten a great boost from a court decision that could make it easier to enforce FOSS licenses.

"Last December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a decision in the matter of Jacobsen v. Katzer, ruling that breach of an open source license can support a claim for copyright infringement with associated remedies. The court's ruling may also require recognizing that the open source copyright owner has standing to sue downstream licensees for copyright infringement.

"However, the unintended side effect of that ruling may be that many software developers could shy away from potential legal conflicts by avoiding open source programming altogether -- and that could lead to more attention on licensing issues that have always existed but never got much attention."

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