Legal decisions related to an open source project serve multiple purposes. Some of those purposes are:

• The protection of contributors from legal risks
• The protection of users from legal risks associated with using the software
• Protection of the good name and brand of the project through trademark
• Enablement of business models for primary contributors

But one of the constituencies of an open source project,namely the community of contributors to the project, is often forgotten, or the effect of other legal decisions on them are underestimated.

Some legal decisions which can have an adverse effect on the contributor community are: * License choice * Contributor licensing agreements * Determining origin of contributions and "clearing" them * Trademark usage policy

Dave Neary is a community manager with a long history of participating in and organising open source community projects, and he will walk you through some of the ways in which decisions in these areas have actively harmed project growth in the past, and may suggest some alternatives which accomplish similar goals without the same side-effects.