The Linux Foundation Member Summit 2025

The modern Academic Medical Center ("AMC") has evolved beyond research & patient care to perform traditional commercial IP functions such as administration, licensing, and development, all in support of their central mission of the advancement of science and medicine. Aligned with this central mission is the proliferation of open-science research and open source innovation at AMCs, who have received millions of dollars from the US government in hopes of creating a flourishing ecosystem of collaboration. Unfortunately, at Mass General Brigham ("MGB") and other AMCs, open science and open source projects struggle to find fit in both licensing compliance and policy. Particularly for MGB, the largest recipient of NIH Open Science funding in the country, its commercial evolution and conservative licensing polices have combined to cause an open source licensing log jam. This session will review the competing AMC policy concerns that have caused MGB to disavow the use of most if not all osi approved licenses, and eventually lead to the development of their own permissive "open source" license.