Whil reviewing books for the Jolt Awards, I have been reading the “Intellectual Property and Open Source” book, published by O’Reilly and authored by Van Lindberg. A book meant to be a developer’s documentation for the legal system, potentially able to serve different audiences, IT managers included.
The author - a software engineer involved with open source since 1994 and practicing attorney for Haynes and Boone, a law firm headquartered in Dallas - wrote a clear guide for anyone who wishes to know more about legal issues of intellectual property, especially if interested in open source projects.
The book details several specific cases - included the exhilarating Homer’s recipe the “Flaming’s Moe” - and gives hints and tips on real problems, ranging from how to properly handle copyright when accepting patches from third parties or what should a developer look at when signing a contract.
Matt Asay wrote a commentary reporting about the GPL chapter, others also wrote interesting reviews of this book, making worth to consider read it.
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