Today, I arrived at the Clean Technology Law Symposium excited to learn more about the current state of the law in clean tech.

It was an excellent event, and the organizers deserve much credit and thanks. Overall, I found myself continually impressed by how many areas of the law are implicated with clean tech law, policy, and business. Speakers touched on antitrust, international intellectual property, patent pools, compulsory licensing, economics, politics, state regulation, federal regulation, international treaties, financing, science, the current technology of the energy grids in deployment, and new developments in technology.

Arthur J. O’Donnell, executive director of CRS (the Center for Resource Solutions) gave a great keynote full of the history and culture behind the U.S. and California energy grid development and regulation. He pointed out that in most clean tech companies and industry events, there is a real dearth of folks from the existing utilities communities. And, in his opinion, leaving them out of the conversation is a big mistake. The large public utilities and the regulations that govern them are huge forces in the energy market and will continue to be so, regardless of where the clean tech revolution takes us.

Additionally, Matthew Dunne of ARPA-E (a subsidiary of the US Department of Energy) spoke about the financial assistance his organization provides to innovators in clean tech. Unfortunately, there are currently no open solicitations for competitive bids, however, he did inform us that ARPA-E does accept unsolicted proposals.

I left with a very real sense that clean tech is an exciting area for disruptive technology and, a very dynamic area of the law due the number of intersecting legal subspecialties it touches.

One of my clients is in the process of entering into a deal with the White House.

Typically, my start-up clients find it very frustrating to try to do business with government agencies. Start-ups and government agencies operate on two very different time scales.

So, it’s a pleasant surprise to learn that the White House is actually much more nimble and flexible than most federal agencies. They understand more about the world my clients live in than any other governmental agency I’ve ever worked with.

And, I must say, the folks who represent the White House are some of the nicest and most reasonable opposing counsel with whom I’ve ever dealt.

Fresh Tomatoes Galore.

After an uncommonly cool summer, we’re finally getting some heat (it’s over 100F outside right now), and the plants are finally starting to produce like mad.

In clockwise order in all of their gorgeous glory above, there’s green zebra, thessoloniki, white oxheart, ananas noir, and sweet horizon.

But wait, there’s more…

…orange russian 117, thessoloniki, top sirloin, green zebra, ananas noir, and green giant.

In fact, now that they have the sun they’ve been waiting for, the plants will wait for no one.  Over the weekend, several of the wooden stakes I’d been using to support the tomato plants broke under the weight of the fruit that seems to grow while you watch it.  Yesterday, in an effort to limit my chores, after picking all of the cracked tomatoes for gazpacho, I picked only cucumbers and white oxhearts:

With the addition of time, heat, spices and acid these became a lovely golden rosemary tomato sauce and pickles.

And now, I just have to come up with a plan for the remaining hundred or so pounds of ripe tomatoes that need attention.

It’s a good problem to have!

Finally, we’re getting into the time of year when the tomato plants are so productive that we can’t eat everything they give us. The rest of the garden is no slouch either.

Tonight’s gorgeous harvest was limited to slicing tomatoes and paste tomatoes (no cherry tomatoes, no squash, no cucumbers), and even so, I’ve got my work cut out for me over the next couple of days.

Last weekend, the harvest was reasonably bountiful:

So, I spent much of the weekend doing the very meditative acts of canning, pickling, and slow roasting.

I yielded 5 pints of Tomato Sauce from chopped up tomatoes:

Plus, a tupperware full of slow-roasted tomatoes, 2 quarts of pickled green tomatoes (so delicious!), a quart of pickled squash, and two colorful quarts of tomatoes in their own juice.

At the end of the canning, the kitchen was a disaster. Imagine an entire kitchen covered with splashes of juice and seeds. Even my shoes were caught in the crossfire.

I’ve learned, though. This weekend, I’ve recruited help.

One of the main differences between GPL v 2.0 and GPL v 3.0 is the modifications made to address some folks’ concerns that to truly embrace the idea of “Free” or “Open” software, the license must also prohibit restrictions at the hardware level that would prohibit folks from modifying the software.

The natural extension of this concept is the idea that there should be a way to contractually ensure that hardware should also be “Free” or “Open” to modification by its users.

In the software world, we have the Open Source Definition or “OSD,” as a set of community-defined principles to guide the use and development of the term “Open Source Software.”

Now, in the hardware world, a consortium of folks have proposed a draft Open Source Hardware Definition that hopes to establish the same thing for the term “Open Source Hardware.”

Today’s version of the draft indicates that they are drawing from the OSD, as well prior drafts of their proposal and the TAPR Open Hardware License.

I wish them the best in their efforts to converge on an agreed set of principles and look forward to working with the term FOSS/H in the future.