Carlo Piana is a lawyer by training and a

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

advocate. A qualified attorney in Italy, Piana has been practicing IT law since 1995, focusing his practice on software, technology, standardization, data protection and digital liberties in general, and served as external general counsel to the

Free Software Foundation Europe The Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. (FSFE) is an organization that supports free software and all aspects of the free software movement in Europe, with registered chapters in several European countries. It is a registered voluntary associat ...

("FSFE"). Piana has been involved in some of the

cornerstone A cornerstone (or foundation stone or setting stone) is the first stone set in the construction of a masonry Foundation (engineering), foundation. All other stones will be set in reference to this stone, thus determining the position of the entir ...

legal cases in Europe, such as the long-running

antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...

battle between the

EU Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of members of the Commission ( directorial system, informally known as "commissioners") corresponding t ...

and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, where he represents both the FSFE and the Samba Team, the standardization of

OOXML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized the initial version ...

ISO/IEC ISO/IEC JTC 1, entitled "Information technology", is a joint technical committee (JTC) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Its purpose is to develop, maintain and ...

, and more recently defending

Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...

in its attempted acquisition of

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

. Piana is a member of the Editorial Committee of the '' International Free and Open Source Software Law Review'' ("IFOSS L. rev.") and has been a member of the board of the

Open Source Initiative The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a California public benefit corporation "actively involved in Open Source community-building, education, and public advocacy to promote awareness and the importance of non-proprietary software". Governance The ...

since 2022. In 2008 he established a freelance consulting practice on IT law, where he leads a small group of IT lawyers named Array.

References

External links

Array is an array
Array official website

Interview by

Groklaw ''Groklaw'' was a website that covered legal news of interest to the free and open source software community. Started as a law blog on May 16, 2003, by paralegal Pamela Jones ("PJ"), it covered issues such as the SCO-Linux lawsuits, the EU an ...

Law is Freedom Blog, both in Italian and in English

Profile on Fossbazaar

IFOSS L. rev. Editorial Committee

Interview by Roberto Galoppini (Commercial Open Source Software)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Piana, Carlo Living people 20th-century Italian lawyers 1968 births 21st-century Italian lawyers