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Webinar: Contribution Policies + Open Source in M&A

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In this webinar Tobie Langel spoke about ‘Open Source Contribution Policies That Don’t Suck.’ Leon Schwartz and Tony Decicco from GTC Law provided an overview of open source-related topics in the context of mergers, acquisitions, financings, investments, IPOs, divestitures, loans, customer license agreements, rep and warranty insurance and other transactions. Andrew Katz presented a due diligence questionnaire and sample warranties based on the the OpenChain specification.

More About This Webinar

Tobie Langel spoke about ‘Open Source Contribution Policies That Don’t Suck.’ In his own words: Open source contribution policies are long, boring, overlooked documents, that generally suck. They’re designed to protect the company at all costs. But in the process, end up hurting engineering productivity, and morale. Sometimes they even unknowingly put corporate IP at risk. But that’s not inevitable. It’s possible to write open source contribution policies that make engineers lives easier, boost morale and productivity, reduce attrition, and attract new talent. And it’s possible to do so while reducing the company’s IP risk, not increasing it.

Leon Schwartz and Tony Decicco from GTC Law provided an overview of open source-related topics in the context of mergers, acquisitions, financings, investments, IPOs, divestitures, loans, customer license agreements, rep and warranty insurance and other transactions. This covered:

  • Types of open source risk
  • Open source due diligence as part of transactions
  • Open source-related terms in agreements
  • The strategic use of open source in transactions

Andrew Katz presented a due diligence questionnaire and sample warranties based on the the OpenChain specification, and explained how adoption of this framework will drive further adoption of the standard. This builds on the observation that the OpenChain specification provides a great framework for due diligence and share purchase agreement warranties, even where the target is a software company which is not OpenChain compliant.

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This is OpenChain Webinar #3, released on 2020-05-07.