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May 28, 2005
Jury Duty: Your Civic Duty
It finally happened. I haven't been called up for Jury Duty since 1999, and they wanted me to come in the week that our deal with MSFT was supposed to close. I wrote back asking for a different week (which the letter from the County clearly stated could only be done once)
A few days later, I received another letter from the county, this time with a different date. Unfortunately, the date was a mere two weeks later. "Um, I know you guys just bought my company, but I have jury duty". That one felt pretty dumb, but what to do? I couldn't ask for a second reprieve.
So on the appointed day last week, I dutifully showed up at the county courthouse and, along with 50 or so others, waited an hour in the Jury Room. We were shown in and were given instructions on how jury selection would occur. The court ... er ... well, I can't remember the guy's title, but a man began to call out folks to be questioned by the judge and the attorneys. I escaped the first round but had to sit and listen to the questions being asked. When the judge asked each potential juror if the four day trial would be a hardship, I heard some of the lamest excuses ever.
Eventually I was called and questioned. For whatever reason, I was not removed by either attorney. The fourteen of us (12 jurors, 2 alternates) were given brief instructions and sent home. Start to finish, the process took more than 7 hours. Walking to my car, I began thinking about the fact I had just been empaneled on my first jury. It sounds cliche, but I really began to feel that not only was it my duty as a citizen to serve on a jury, but that I should take pride in the fact that our democracy, however flawed, has a court system that really subscribes to the notion of "innocent until proven guilty". I realized I was actually perturbed by the others that had so lamely tried to get out of jury duty.
The next day, a few friends found out I was serving on a jury. To a person they said the same thing "gee, couldn't you have gotten off? Just lie a little next time...". Ugh
Posted by davehod at 12:15 PM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2005
Open Source and IP -- Licensing
First up in my series of posts about IP and Open Source is an important issue - understanding licensing. This issue can be somewhat obscure and seem unimportant at the beginning of a startup's life. It isn't -- consider it to be one of the most important items in the future of your company. Ignore at your own peril.
As an entrepreneur, if you are thinking about using open source in your prototype or project, you will need to become knowledgeable about the various types of licenses used by various open source projects.
(Disclaimer -- I am not a lawyer. The opinions expressed are mine and should simply be considered a starting point NOT an end-all-be-all explanation of a very complex issue)
There are quite a few licenses -- fortunately you can cover quite a bit of ground by reviewing and understanding just a handful of them. The vast majority of other licenses will probably be derivative of these major licenses (and probably even say so in their docs) Understanding licenses might be the difference between having to distribute any modifications you have made in source code form, or distributing in binary form with the proper attribution.
As you might guess, having to distribute your changes in source code form to your competitors might cause more than one VC to end the due diligence process immediately and move onto other startups with IP that can be protected.
Major Open Source Licenses
1. GPL - GNU General Public License. The granddaddy of them all and also one of the licenses that causes some big headaches if it isn't understood. The GPL FAQ pretty much sums up the issue that can kill a round of funding before it even begins:
if you release the modified version to the public in some way, the GPL requires you to make the modified source code available to the program's users, under the GPL.
In other words, if you modify a library or framework that uses the GPL for licensing and then intend to distribute the work, you have to distribute the complete source also. Any VC will immediately notice that your IP has diminished in value. How much value has been lost depends on how much of a differential advantage the changes provide your startup.
2. LGPL - GNU Lesser General Public License. A somewhat less restrictive version of the GPL. However, it can have significant impact - tread carefully.
3. Apache 2.0 - The latest revision from the Apache Group. In my experience a large percentage of libraries and frameworks are under this license (Apache web server, Tomcat, Jakarta) In general, the license is easy to work with and understand.
4. BSD-style licenses - Generally one of the least restrictive requirements. An example is the OpenSSL licenses which state:
... both licenses are BSD-style Open Source licenses
This might be a bit confusing at first ("what does BSD-style mean??") but realize that the intent is to allow for modification and distribution of the modification in binary form.
Moving Forward
Print out a copy of each of the licenses listed above. Read over them three or four times. Do some research, ask questions, make notes. It will be time well-spent.
Note that a large number of licenses can be found at OpenSource.org
Posted by davehod at 09:53 PM | Comments (0)
May 20, 2005
Open Source and IP
Over the last few years, I've been heavily exposed to the vast array of Open Source projects. Everything from the commonly used Apache Web server, Tomcat, JBoss, Apache Commons, Struts, OJB and a number of other projects.
The quality of these projects is fantastic and can enable a startup to utilize Best Practices in many areas. However, there is also a potential issue regarding a company's intellectual property (IP) that, if not handled properly, can become a significant impediment to long-term success.
In the next month or so, I plan to make a series of posts about open source and IP and strategies for entreprenuers who plan to build a business around this new and exciting area.
Posted by davehod at 03:41 PM | Comments (0)
Microsoft Purchases MessageCast
[A very belated post]
Microsoft acquired the company I co-founded last Wednesday. Kudos to everyone involved, as a lot of folks worked hard on hammering out an agreement and keeping things moving forward. (Brad Feld from Mobius has a few comments here)
Everyone at MessageCast is excited to work more closely with the crew at MSFT and grow, grow, grow the business. We should be moving from our office in RWC to SVC in the near-term.
(InfoWorld link)
Posted by davehod at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)