Is Software Licensing Still Relevant? - Flourish! 2011
Channel: Flourish Conference
Date: 2013-11-11

Flourish! 2011
Edward R. Swiderski III - began his career with Voyager.net as an intern while attending Michigan State University. Upon graduating, he immediately joined Analysts International in various software development capacities. He was involved in software projects from small commercially focused, to large-scale systems integration. In the midst of his entry level experience, Ed started up GreenCanyon, a professional web services consulting firm.  Mr. Swiderski has also driven business solutions for Magenic and NuSoft, national leaders of Microsoft consulting services. Mr. Swiderski's more recent role has been Enterprise Services Executive, with Microsoft Consulting Services, where he was responsible for managing 10 states in the Midwest region, specifically focused on large public sector entities. Core responsibilities included sales, account management and orchestrating enterprise application and infrastructure deployments.
Ed now serves as a Partner at GreenCanyon, where he drives customer solutions and delivery management.
Ed is also a founding director of the Global Education Open Technology Foundation, which partners up with other technology organizations around the globe to bring technology to less privileged students.

Talk Description: While software and licensing have been synonymous for decades, it has always been a controversial topic--sure to ignite debate.  The question is:  With the advent and explosion of software as a service and decentralization of software and platforms, does licensing still matter?  Will the GPL become irrelevant given the exponential growth of service driven platforms, and the decreasing amount of grassroots community projects?