This really reads more like 5 legal tips to get you into a lawyer's office before there's any real need.
(1) The open source business models in this article weren't locked down until years after the products were successful. SourceFire and Tenable, in my industry, are both examples of extremely successful companies that simply shipped straight GPL until they were ready to start making money (on Snort and Nessus, respectively).
(2) There's little you can reasonably do in a 3-month old company to bulletproof yourself from a bad-faith partner who is going to make claims on your IP; also, you have bigger problems; also, if it looks like you're going to make money, VC probably doesn't care. I've been through VC due diligence a bunch of times, and I never saw them take out the fine-toothed comb.
(3) It seems equally likely to me that by posting a FAQ and "policing" your content, you set up the expectation with content providers and with the courts that you're obligated to do that.
(4) Ok. Don't sign ROFR's. Gotcha. Why didn't he just offer the real advice, which is, "don't sign any contract complicated enough to have a ROFR clause, or anything else you could call a 'clause', without a lawyer"?
(5) Have any of you bothered to register trademarks?
(1) The open source business models in this article weren't locked down until years after the products were successful. SourceFire and Tenable, in my industry, are both examples of extremely successful companies that simply shipped straight GPL until they were ready to start making money (on Snort and Nessus, respectively).
(2) There's little you can reasonably do in a 3-month old company to bulletproof yourself from a bad-faith partner who is going to make claims on your IP; also, you have bigger problems; also, if it looks like you're going to make money, VC probably doesn't care. I've been through VC due diligence a bunch of times, and I never saw them take out the fine-toothed comb.
(3) It seems equally likely to me that by posting a FAQ and "policing" your content, you set up the expectation with content providers and with the courts that you're obligated to do that.
(4) Ok. Don't sign ROFR's. Gotcha. Why didn't he just offer the real advice, which is, "don't sign any contract complicated enough to have a ROFR clause, or anything else you could call a 'clause', without a lawyer"?
(5) Have any of you bothered to register trademarks?