Ted Wang, with the support of Andreessen Horowitz, recently posted some open source legal document forms for companies seeking seed funding.

It’s an interesting concept, and in the abstract, one that I’ve been thinking about for quite some time.

I think, in general, the open source software movement has changed the game.  Not by devaluing the skills of the individual developers, but by decentralizing the control of the software they write from the few corporations to the many of the masses.

This change has resulted in amazing progress in some areas, and, of course, ridiculous amounts of navel gazing in others.  But, at a high level, what it’s really done is to move the value associated with the software from the centralized control of powerful corporations to the decentralized control of the skilled individuals who contribute the copyrighted works.

And, in doing so, it’s shown that In many contexts, the value of open source software is not in the copyright to the code of a particular project, but rather in the goodwill of the community that is supporting, maintaining, and potentially following the direction of the steward of the code of that project.

By analogy, it’s not like posting documents that are freely available in the legal start-up space is a new move.  The National Venture Capital Association has made its standard forms available for many years.

But, the difference with Series Seed is the stated goal.  The open legal document movement, if it is to succeed where it applies to start up companies, is in desperate need of a dedicated community, and most likely, a community-trusted steward who will take this project on and protect it, preside over disputes, and act as a neutral third party when folks with an interest in the project have different goals.

It should be interesting to see if the Series Seed project moves in this direction and is able to play this role in the seed funding community.

Today was an interesting day in privacy lawsuit news.

First, there are the parents of a Pennsylvania high school student who filed a complaint against the school alleging that the school remotely activated a school-issued laptop and took a picture of the child. At home. Without his or their knowledge. And without his or their consent.

Then, there’s the class action lawsuit against Google regarding auto-activation of Buzz and the information that was necessarily shared in connection with that activation. Specifically,

Google turned Gmail “into a social networking service and that’s not what they signed up for, Google imposed that on them without getting their consent,” said Kimberly Nguyen, consumer privacy counsel with EPIC of Washington, D.C. “The bottom line is, users should have meaningful control over their information.”

I’d say these lawsuits show that not everyone agrees with Mark Zuckerberg’s statement that Privacy is no longer a social norm.

The most recent newsletter from Daniel Munitillo discusses U.S. export law as it applies to code, and determines that, for the most part, U.S. export restrictions do not apply to open source software.

Why? The First Amendment.

Specifically, he states:

. . . [a]ny and all computer code not considered classified by, or, not for official use only (FOUO) of the United States Government, which is open source, freely and publically available, exchanged for any non prohibited end use is protected under the case law cited as free speech. The case law is clear*.

Export compliance is a pain for small companies. The fact that open sourced software is protected speech and thus not subject to standard U.S. government export compliance is yet one more reason in a long list of reasons why small companies should consider open-sourcing some or all of their code when evaluating their business options.

*In accordance with Junger v. Daley, 209 F. 3d 481 (6th Cir. 2000); Bernstein v United States, 922 F. Supp 1426 (1996), 945 F. Supp. 1279 (1996), and at 176 F. 3d 1132 (9th Cir. 1997); and Karn v United States Department of State, 925 F. Supp. 1, 9-10 (D.D.C. 1996), remanded, 107 F. 3d 923 (D.C. Cir 1997), Code is protected as free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

There’s a debate going on right now. How long should the search engines be able to save your search data (associated with your IP address, or your cookie, or your unique identifier associated with your login to their services)? 6 months? 9 months? Less? More?

From a business perspective, this information is very useful. The longer, the better.  It helps potential business partners (service providers, product providers, advertisers, etc.) know what you are likely to want to see, buy, use, and potentially even contribute to the conversation. Of course, whether the search engines should be allowed to share this information at all is yet another conversation.

From a law enforcement perspective, the enforcers would prefer the everything be recorded in perpetuity, indexed, searchable, and admissable as evidence in prosecution. And let us not forget that in some scenarios, certainly, the pattern of behavior, searches, and information sought would be down-right bone chilling, and had someone been monitoring it, no doubt, they could have sounded the alarm prior to some horrific event.

The other side of the coin is that many of us have the occasional horrid thought, which results in the occasional questionable-looking search engine query, and really, we’d like that moment to be erasable instantaneously, not 6 or 9 months later. And why not?

From a privacy perspective, the preservation of and presentation of this information to third parties (even for *law enforcement reasons*) is quite scary.  If I searched for the failure rate of pregnancy tests a month ago, that’s a very indicative fact about me, as a person, or perhaps my friends and family. Should anyone have the right to know that I did that? If I searched for palliative treatments for a terminal medical condition, the search is similarly indicative and raises similar questions. Who truly deserves to know these intimate details about my thoughts and internal questions without my permission?

The EU, in general, has taken a stronger role in protecting the privacy of the individual on-line, than the U.S.

This results in situations like the recent decision by Microsoft to purge search data attached to IP addresses after 6 months, which is a significant improvement (from the end user “protect-my-privacy” standpoint) over Google’s policy of 9 months.

It’s an interesting thing to watch, because the current day-to-day operating privacy policy is being set far outside the world of the lawyers who litigate and fight for a living. And, as a lawyer who doesn’t fight, I think it’s a valid legal issue, but I’m observing that by the time the big companies deign to get the lawyers get involved (by buy-in and invitation), that very colorfully flagged ship will have sailed, most likely by necessity.

It will be a brave new world.

I’ve decided to start my own law practice.

I’ve given notice to the firm and have set my last day, but in the meantime, there are a ton of details to manage and things to do and learn. First, there’s leaving while preserving as much goodwill with the firm as possible. I’ve been pleased with how well this has been going, and have been impressed, yet again, with what a great group of attorneys I work with — they have been very encouraging and supportive. Then, there’s transitioning my existing clients to other attorneys at the firm who will replace me in a manner that is professional and leaves them with a good impression of me. And then, in the background, there’s all the stuff I need to get in place to actually get my own firm up and running…

Given that I need to have a digital social network in place to help recruit clients once my firm is up and running, Biting Tongue has finally ceased to be the main outlet for my written thoughts.

These days, I’m adopting a multi-pronged approach with Facebook, Twitter, and this professional blog as well.