Carlo Piana
Carlo is a lawyer based in Milan, Italy, practicing IT law, active for almost 25 years in advocacy and activism for digital freedoms. He has been involved in the battles for ensuring competition in networking protocols on behalf of Samba Team and FSFE in one of the largest at the time litigation on antitrust matters before the EU Courts. Regularly advises, also pro bono or partly pro bono, some of the most important Free Software entities and foundations, including Debian, The Document Foundation and the Blender Foundation. Has served as General Counsel for the Free Software Foundation Europe for more than ten years and as Chair of the Board of the Open Source Initiative, of which is Board Member, as well as founding and being editor of the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review. He is also a contributing member of the Eclipse Foundation and is one of the designers of the OS compliance toolchain developed within the Eclipse Oniro projects. He is fellow of the Open Forum Academy and member of OpenChain. He was in the first advisory board for creating detail legislation favoring Open Source software over proprietary in Italian public procurement.
Session
Choosing an Open Source license is a foundational choice that shapes your project's future, yet relying on habit, copy-pasting or DIY approaches remains a widespread pitfall. Drawing on 25 years of FOSS licensing experience -- including time on the OSI Licensing Committee -- this talk delivers a practical roadmap for evaluating licenses. Discover the critical criteria for choosing wisely, avoiding compliance traps, and properly licensing modern AI-enabled projects -- whether you are making the choice for the first time or re-evaluating decisions already made.