Literature Review 0: Legal Issues Primer Chapters 1 and 2

Keeping it rolling with a review of the Handbook for the Business and Legal Aspects of FOSS class: A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects. Quite a Mouthful. I'm going to go with "The Primer" from this point forward. This will be reviewing the first two chapters in particular.

Who:

The Primer is written by a laundry list of who's who of FOSS: Richard Fontana, Bradley M. Kuhn, Eben Moglen, Matthew Norwood, Daniel B. Ravicher, Karen Sandler, James Vasile, and Aaron Williamson.

What:

The chapters of The Primer we are covering today detail much of the Primer is and some basic details on a couple of the many licenses that you can choose to file your project under.

Where:

You can find a copy of The Primer here.

When:

The Primer hasn't been updated in a while, but the last revision was put out in 2008.

The Gist:

The two chapters of The Primer that I am covering are detailing mainly what The Primer is and is not, as well as going into what certain licenses are meant for and a basic idea of when they should be used.

The Good:

1. Very clearly states that it isn't meant to replace sound legal advice.
2. Fairly easy to ready and clearly explains legal jargon.
3. Broaches several topics that are important for deciding your license.

The Bad:

1. Doesn't go too deep into many different licenses.
2. Slightly outdated.
3. Is a dry read, as expected of legal advice

Any Questions?

1. Why not include license X?
2. Why use the previous version of the GPL as opposed to the most recent?

In Conclusion:

Overall, The Primer was an okay read, but it offers sage advice that anyone who is planning on starting a FOSS project should definitely take a look at, at least to some degree. It will not replace proper legal counsel, but it can at least get you started on your way to knowing what is going on in the legal realm. 9.5 Lawyers/10