Skip Navigation Links By Shannon Peevey, UNT Central Web Support
As the Free Software/Open Source movement is gaining momentum,
many companies are struggling to comprehend this phenomenon.
They wonder how it is possible for a company to either make
money “doing 'Open Source'”, or how they can protect their
investments from a seemingly endless sea of developers who seem
to give away their time for free. In response, the Free
Software/Open Source movement is studying the laws that affect
their products, and are trying to understand how to use them to
protect the rights of the users. As the enmity between the
movements seems to deepen, some companies are trying to attack
the Open Source/Free Software movement, and it's products, by
declaring a breach of “intellectual property”. They are saying
that code has been illegally transferred from their products
into free software products, which is a breach of their rights
and their “intellectual property”. What is “intellectual
property”? How does “intellectual propert