The Other Side of Openness: Licence Enforcement - Open Enterprise

"It's generally recognised that one of Richard Stallman's key contributions to free software - and far beyond it - was coming up with the GNU General Public Licence. It was a typically clever hack that turned copyright on its head: instead of being used to stop people sharing, it hovers in the background as a way of making sure people do share. In other words, copyright becomes the legal threat that lies behind free software, and ensures that it functions as intended. But threats only work if you are ultimately prepared to follow through with them, and that means a crucial if largely neglected aspect of free software is enforcement of the licence. The main organisation that has shouldered the burden of enforcement is the Software Freedom Conservancy ... One of those indirect needs is enforcing the GNU GPL, and the person who has probably done more in this regard than anyone is Bradley M. Kuhn, although he is active in the free software world in other important ways, too. As it happens, he has recently relinquished his role as the Software Freedom Conservancy's Executive Director, passing that title on to Karen Sandler, formerly Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation ... Sadly, this attempt by companies to take without respecting the rules is not limited to the world of software. For some time I've suggested that OpenStreetMap is fast becoming one of the key open projects, as location emerges as a critical aspect of mobile computing. It seems that OpenStreetMap is now sufficiently important and valuable that some companies are starting to abuse its generosity just as others abuse free software's munificence ..."