Welcome to the Open Source Law website.

Open Source Law (OSL) is, what is elsewhere called, a Micro Boutique legal practice based in Sydney, Australia. I (Brendan Scott) am a lawyer, an open source advocate and a proponent of customer copyright. After almost 10 years of working in big law firms in Sydney specialising in IT and telecommunications law, I felt that traditional approaches to protecting customers in technology acquisitions were often flawed and unresponsive to customers' real long term needs. I did extensive research into open source as an emerging business model and want to help customer organisations, particularly those in the public sector, use its strengths to get better long term value out of their IT expenditure. That's why I set up Open Source Law.

Open Source Law provides services in all aspects of ICT related law. Most of OSL's clients have an open source connection, but not all of our work is strictly open source. We also advise on ICT procurement, including development and systems integration projects, business related drafting, IP ownership and distribution agreements.

The website is divided into a number of sections. Our corporate profile section provides some background on open source law, including details of our service lines and legal tools. The links & resources page has references to resources of interest, primarily in open source and ICT policy. In our past projects section you can get a feel for some of the work carried out by Open Source Law and how our services might fit your needs. Our publications section includes (not surprisingly) OSL's publications on ICT and open source legal issues. At OSL we also believe strongly in the need to participate in the community. Our community section sets out some of the things we do for the open source, and the broader community.