Legal and Policy

Purpose

To develop and sustain UK leadership in legal matters and policy in Open technology

Vision

Open technology is the norm across UK public services, businesses and individuals.
The UK is recognised as the leader in education and skills training in Open technology.
Open technology forms the basis of the UK’s thriving knowledge economy.

Mission

To enable the UK’s leadership in Open Technology by influencing the development of suitable law, policy and practice.
To represent and bring together legal and policy leaders in Open Technology in the UK while building a body of expertise and experience in legal and policy matters.
To promote understanding of legal and policy matters relating to Open Technology across individuals, enterprise, and the public sector through education and the provision of tools and resources to enable the adoption of Open Technology.

Legal Work Group Chaired by Christopher Eastham

Joint Report with OSOR on state of Open Source in UK published July 2020
Amicus Brief Google v Oracle submitted March 2020
FOSS4SME and letter to MP’s shared January 2020
International Treaties – supported Brexit Trade Agreements
Response to new Legislation – ongoing
Tools and Education – ongoing
Joint Events planned with Society of Computers and Law

The group works in a proactive and reactive way, looking at necessary and forward looking policies and areas of change as well as responding to proposed legislation in the UK and beyond.

Legal Group Members

See our Legal Group Members

Blogs of interest

Amanda Brock

28th July 2020

OpenUK collaborates with European Commission Observatory’s report enriching content covering UK open source

EU’s Open Source Software Country Intelligence Report produced by OSOR covers attitudes to open source across continent, and highlights UK opportunities for open technology London...

Henry Nash

23rd July 2020

Designing Tech to defeat Coercive Behaviour and Domestic Abuse

The combination of the app-economy and cheap cloud resources has led to a transformation in the technology tools we have to manage our lives. We...

Amanda Brock

22nd May 2020

Gnome settles Patent litigation: Amanda Brock, CEO OpenUK interviews Neil McGovern, ED of Gnome Foundation and Board Director at OpenUK

“Firstly, Congratulations Neil and very well done. This is probably the best possible result Gnome could have had right? “I believe so, yes. We have...

Van Lindberg

20th January 2020

OpenUK Amicus Brief in Google v Oracle copyright law suit

Open Source Attorney, Van Lindberg discusses the filing with the U.S. Supreme Court of an amicus brief including OpenUK. An amicus brief is filed in...

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