The first day of WordCamp Phoenix 2011 brought a fun afternoon event: a mock GPL debate held at Gangplank, one of the coworking spaces in Phoenix that is providing space for the event this week. In the video embedded above, watch a mock case presented to over 100 attendees, where “TermSmash” is a GPL program and is in disagreement with “Conclusion”, a user of “TermSmash”.
Anybody else getting a strong déjà vu vibe right now?
You can follow the events going down at WordCamp Phoenix 2011 for the next few days by following the hashtag on Twitter, and I would also recommend watching our event coverage as well. If it’s happening, we’ll let you know about it!
Not bad! (Though the audio could stand to have been a bit higher.)
I think they generally apply the copyright law correctly – though a bit more information up-front regarding the specific nature of the alleged copyright infringement would have been helpful (it really wasn’t clarified until the Q&A session that the nature of incorporation was merely API/function calls).
I didn’t really care much for the TechSmash lawyer’s argument. It was long on waxing philosophical, and short on applying precedent case law. I thought the derivative-work argument could have been made a bit stronger (and I say this as one who is well-known for siding against the derivative-work argument).
Also, the Q&A session either needed an audience mic, or the speakers should have re-stated the question. It was pretty difficult to pick up the questions off-mic.
Interesting session. It would be neat to see the presentation continued to be developed and improved, as it provides a good way to help people understand the GPL/copyright legal issues.