We raised $2,515.72 toward Dan Lynch's trip to a conference to represent the show and record content! We'll be coordinated with Dan about what conference he wants to attend.
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Free as in Freedom
November 24, 2015
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0x57: Support Conservancy Now!
Summary
Free as in Freedom host Christopher Allan Webber interviews Karen Sandler and Bradley Kuhn about their work on copyleft and at Software Freedom Conservancy. You can become a Supporter of this work!
This show was released on Tuesday 24 November 2015; its running time is 00:26:10.
Show Notes
- Bradley mentioned Cygnus Solutions, ultimately acquired by Red Hat, which was an early for-profit supporter of copylefted projects.
- Bradley and Karen discussed the VMware lawsuit.
- Chris Webber wrote this blog post in response to a Shane Curcuru, who is VP of Brand Management at the Apache Software Foundation, anti-copyleft talk at OSCON 2015. Shane's talk is consistent with Apache Software Foundation's historical and recent anti-copyleft positions (12:23)
June 4, 2015
0x56: … & We're Back!
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss the VMware lawsuit that Software Freedom Conservancy is funding.
This show was released on Thursday 4 June 2015; its running time is 00:33:52.
Show Notes
- Bradley and Karen discuss the lawsuit that Christoph Hellwig filed. (07:37)
- Karen mentioned her LibrePlanet keynote about the VMware lawsuit. (21:30)
- Bradley's talk at LinuxConf Australia 2015, Considering The Future of Copyleft, is available online. (22:04)
- Bradley mentioned the discussion on pump.io about NPR fundraisers. (24:23)
- Bradley mentioned a Debian 8 release party at LinuxFest Northwest, which Microsoft didn't invite him to, since he wasn't willing to give Microsoft his contact info for marketing purposes. (29:16)
- Karen and Bradley promoted the Conservancy supporter program (31:40)
March 3, 2015
0x55: Nick Coghlan at LCA 2015
Summary
Bradley and Karen interview Nick Coghlan, who works onn development and test infrastructure for Red Hat and is heavily involved with the Python community.
This show was released on Tuesday 3 March 2015; its running time is 00:40:12.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:35)
Bradley and Karen interviewed Nick Coghlan who works for Red Hat and contributes to various Open Source and Free Software projects such as Python. Nick discussed his work on the infrastructure team at Red Hat, and his advocacy of Kallithea for use for the CPython project.
January 29, 2015
0x54: Carol Smith at LCA 2015
Summary
Bradley and Karen interview Carol Smith, Programs and Open Source Community Manager of Google Summer of Code about the program and its policies and procedures.
This show was released on Thursday 29 January 2015; its running time is 00:39:39.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:35)
Bradley encourages those who attend FOSDEM 2015 to attend sign up to attend the Supporter Night Event on 30 January 2015 in Brussels, Belgium.
Segment 1 (00:50:11)
More Show notes for this one coming soon!
December 30, 2014
0x53: Can Plagiarism Happen Under Copyleft?
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss what plagiarism is (or isn't) and how it interacts with copyleft licenses.
This show was released on Tuesday 30 December 2014; its running time is 01:16:43.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:37)
- Please donate to to send Dan to a conference. There's a progress bar on faif.us now.
- You can also donate to support Software Freedom Conservancy, where Bradley and Karen work, by becoming a supporter.
- Karen mentioned her blog post about the supporter program. (00:08:30)
- Bradley mentioned his blog post about the supporter program as well. (00:09:30)
Segment 1 (00:16:16)
- Bradley and Karen pick up on a topic original discussed in Segment 1 of FaiF 0x02. (00:16:50)
- Bradley discussed the Laurie Stearns' article from the California Law Review, entitled Copy Wrong: Plagiarism, Process, Property, and the Law (00:23:50)
- Bradley mentioned The GNOME Foundation Copyright Assignment Guidelines that he co-authored. (00:28:05)
- Bradley mentioned the Doris Kearns Goodwin Plagiarism controversy, and how it would have been simply redressed if the material she reused had been copylefted. (00:29:26)
- Karen mentioned that Flickr made different policies for CC-BY-SA'd works when selling printed versions. (32:30)
- Bradley mentioned that even software freedom advocates just comply with the copyleft licenses and don't work collaboratively, particularly during hostile forks, using Conservancy's Kallithea project as an example. (00:35:25)
- Bradley reiterated a point he made in FaiF 0x08, where he discussed that Linus Torvalds switched to GPL for Linux because he realized non-commercial restrictions weren't appropriate. (00:37:50)
- Bradley mentioned the hostile fork of GCC called egcs. The H-Online years later wrote a long article that discussed the egcs fork egcs fork. (00:39:46)
- Bradley mentioned that plagiarism is ultimately about attribution, and modern DVCS systems makes attribution easy and renders plagiarism impossible (if DVCS logs are accurate). (00:44:15)
- Bradley mentioned that he continually has learned the lesson that if you let your employer keep copyright, you lose everything you had when you switch employers (if the work isn't copylefted). (00:47:00)
- Bradley discussed the methods of attribution required in GPLv3. (00:50:05)
- Bradley mentioned that copyright notices are the primary method of attribution in copyleft licenses, and even non-copyleft ones too. (00:53:19)
- Karen discussed the attribution requirements in text of CC-BY-SA 4.0. (00:53:49)
- Bradley wants to do a whole FaiF show about how CC-BY-SA may not be a true copyleft since it has no source code requirement (00:54:40)
- Bradley mentioned the “fake name” that film directors use when they wish to disavow a work they aren't happy with. The name is, in fact, Alan Smithee, and indeed the 1984 film Dune lists Smithee as a director even though David Lynch is known publicly to be the director. (00:58:40)
- Bradley mentioned the unfair accusations against Red Hat when they stopped publishing their internal Linux Git repository and instead released a more standard ChangeLog. (01:05:30)
December 24, 2014
0x52: Legal Issues from a Radical Community Angle
Summary
Bradley and Karen play and discuss
Stefano Zacchiroli's talk entitled Legal issues from a radical community angle that he gave 12:00 European/Central time on Sunday 2 February 2014 at FOSDEM 2014.
This show was released on Wednesday 24 December 2014; its running time is 01:04:50.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:35)
Karen and Bradley introduce the talk.
Segment 1 (00:02:38)
Stefano Zacchiroli's talk entitled Legal issues from a radical community angle . You can watch the video instead of listening to our audio and/or follow along with Zach's slides.
Segment 2 (00:53:17)
- Please note: Bradley and Karen recorded these comments before the init system coupling referendum completed, which is why Karen and Bradley don't discuss it. However, their comments about the Debian democratic process are highly relevant to the recent vote. Also, Bradley discussed his views on that specific issue as a guest co-host on Linux Outlaws, Episode 368.
- Bradley and Karen discussed SPI as Debian's fiscal sponsor and used a few terms like grantor/grantee (01:01:20)
December 11, 2014
0x51: Why Licenses Requiring Use of Trademarks are Non-Free
Summary
Bradley and Karen play and discuss Pam Chestek's talk entitled Why Licenses Requiring Use of Trademarks are Non-Free that she gave on Sunday 2 February 2014 at FOSDEM 2014.
This show was released on Thursday 11 December 2014; its running time is 01:10:00.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:34)
- You can donate now to send Producer Dan Lynch to a Free Software conference. Donations will be made to Conservancy and any proceeds raised beyond the amount needed to send Dan to a conference will support Conservancy generally. (05:30)
- Dan will of course need to follow Conservancy's travel policy since Conservancy will fund his travel. (06:50)
- Bradley discussed the backstory on the Groupon attempt to steal GNOME's name. GNOME Foundation had to go public to raise funds to fight Groupon (10:05)
Segment 1 (00:13:26)
Pam Chestek gives a talk entitled Why Licenses Requiring Use of Trademarks are Non-Free. You can watch the video instead of listening to our audio and follow along with Pam's slides.
Segment 2 (01:00:37)
- Bradley mentioned Pam's talk from the previous year, which was played on 0x3C. (01:01:32)
- Bradley mentioned that GPLv3§7 allows for removal of additional restrictions that abuse that clause of GPLv3. (01:04:24)
November 24, 2014
0x5B: Interview with RMS on GNU's 30th Anniversary
Summary
Karen and Bradley interview Richard M. Stallman on the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the GNU Project.
Note: Episode 0x5B was released out of sequence, but they are in the order of release date on faif.us (rather than numerical order by episode number).
This show was released on Monday 24 November 2014; its running time is 00:40:06.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:34)
Note: Episode 0x5B was released out of sequence, but they are in the order of release date on faif.us (rather than numerical order by episode number).
Bradley and Karen introduce the interview.
Segment 1 (01:20)
- This segment is an interview with Richard M. Stallman on the occasion of GNU's thirtieth anniversary.
- RMS mentioned the LibreJS project. (26:10)
- Bradley and Karen discuss the interview.
- Bradley mis-rememered, RMS said he would start on Thanksgiving in the original announcement (38.40).
Segment 2 (33:58)
November 11, 2014
0x50: Big Announcements & Evans' FOSDEM 2014 Talk
Summary
Karen and Bradley announce Conservancy's DMCA filing and Conservancy and FSF's joint launch of the copyleft.org project, and then discuss Eileen Evans' FOSDEM 2014 talk, entitled Licensing Models and Building an Open Source Community.
This show was released on Tuesday 11 November 2014; its running time is 01:13:10.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:36)
- Conservancy file a DMCA petition regarding so-called “Smart TVs”. (02:00)
- Bradley mentioned the magic marker that was as circumvention technique under DMCA. Here's an amusing joke press release about the issue. (03:10)
- There isn't much documentation online of Bruce Perens live DMCA violation, but this article appears to be the main one on the subject, and there is also this interview (06:46).
- Bradley and Karen talked about the joint FSF/Conservancy copyleft.org announcement. (09:10)
- Bradley first pulled together the materials for copyleft.org for FSF's CLE seminars, particularly the one in March 2014. (10:00)
- Karen noted that Conservancy donated the time to write up a pristine example of good complete, corresponding source code for a GPL'd product. (11:30)
- Bradley discussed the incorrect GPLv2§2(a) violation accusations that some made against Red Hat regarding its changes to its publication of RHEL's Linux fork. (12:00)
- Karen and Bradley encouraged listeners to submit talk proposals for the FOSDEM 2015 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom (15:03)
Segment 1 (19:38)
This is a recording of Eileen Evans' FOSDEM 2014 talk, entitled Licensing Models and Building an Open Source Community. If you'd rather watch the video, which includes the slides from her talk, it's available on FOSDEM's site.
Segment 2 (46:40)
- Bradley and Karen discuss Eileen's talk.
- Bradley mentioned the OpenStack CLA fight, which was covered in a panel discussion on FaiF 0x4B. (56:16)
- Karen mentioned the 501(c)(6) issues that OpenStack Foundation has faced, which were discussed already on FaiF 0x4E. (56:34)
October 23, 2014
0x5A: Gamergate's Free Software Connection
Summary
Note: Episode 0x5A was released out of sequence, but they are in the order of release date on faif.us (rather than numerical order).
Karen and Bradley discuss connections between the so-called “Gamergate” controversy and how it relates to the Free Software community and a few obvious legal issues.
This show was released on Thursday 23 October 2014; its running time is 00:55:31.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:37)
- Karen asked if Bradley had heard of the Gamergate situation. (01:30)
- Matthew Garrett wrote a blog post regarding this topic entitled Actions have consequences (or: why I'm not fixing Intel's bugs any more) (10:23)
- Mathew was attacked on LKML about this blog post (10:50)
- Lennart Poettering also wrote an essay recently about aggression and attacking people in Free Software communities. (12:12)
- Karen mentioned the harassment Kathy Sierra faced in the late 2000s. (13:00)
- Bradley called out Linux Foundation to ask why they tacitly support the bad behavior by its employees and others in the Linux Project (14:35, 31:10)
- Bradley mentioned that Antti Aumo in his LinuxCon Europe 2011 keynote,
said that a great thing about the Internet of Things is that you can
put a lock on your fridge when the wife's on a diet
. (16:32) - Bradley mentioned the Eddie Murphy's Saturday Night Live skit, White Like Me, which according to the transcript, originally aired on 1984-12-15 on SNL. (24:45)
- Bradley mentioned FaiF 0x13, which discussed torts and why they're important. (29:50)
- Bradley wrote a blog post about Bradley mentioned his blog post about John Oliver's discussion of the Miss America Pageant (43:30)
- Bradley suggested that Intel should have instead given the Gamasutra money to Society of Women Engineers Scholarship fund. (45:30)
- Karen mentioned the statement Intel published a statement regarding the situation. (47:10)
October 9, 2014
0x4F: Linus Torvalds' Comments at DebConf 2014
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss and criticize comments made by Linus Torvalds at his Q&A during DebConf 2014 in Portland, OR on 29 August 2014.
This show was released on Thursday 9 October 2014; its running time is 00:38:51.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:37)
Bradley and Karen discuss the Q&A with Linus Torvalds at DebConf 2014 in Portland, OR on 29 August 2014. (01:09)
Segment 1 (04:30)
- Ryan Lortie asked about an offensive public statement Linus Torvalds made on 6 July 2012. (05:04)
- Bradley mentioned that Linus Torvalds argued Red Hat was kowtowing to Microsoft using offensive language. (07:57)
- Karen mentioned that Linus
called GNOME an
unholy mess
. (19:05)
September 23, 2014
0x4E: IRS Refusal Redux
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss the key differences between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) organizations in the USA, and discuss recent refusals by the IRS to grant such statuses to Open Source and Free Software orgs.
This show was released on Tuesday 23 September 2014; its running time is 00:49:25.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:34)
- Bradley mentioned the 501(c)(3) vs. 501(c)(6) difference came up on FaiF 0x41. (03:35)
- Bradley mentioned that in 501(c)(3) status from the IRS is based on receiving some status governed by §170(b)(1)(A) of the tax code. (Most Free Software charities, such as Conservancy, are classifed as non-profit charities under §170(b)(1)(A)(vi).) (05:10)
- Bradley mentioned this issue had been discussed on FLOSS Foundations' mailing list (05:50)
- Bradley discussed that at the OSCON 2013 tutorial, Community Foundations 101, most of the 501(c)(6) representatives who spoke argued incorrectly that the differences between 501(c)(3)'s and 501(c)(6)'s were not substantive. (10:50)
- Karen referenced how the
TV show Silicon Valley parodies the irony of for-profit
software companies claiming they
make the world a better place
. (11:58) - Bradley mentioned he was inspired by Michael Moore in his work on Free Software. (15:02)
- Bradley mentioned Karen's talk called Identity Crisis (15:21)
- Karen mentioned that open source was on the list of items the IRS gave additional scrutiny. (16:51)
- Bradley mentioned a blog post by Jim Nelson where Yorba's rejection was discussed; Yorba's 501(c)(3) application was previously discussed on was discussed on 0x1C, and covered in many other places. (17:46)
- Karen wrote a blog post about why she isn't worried for Conservancy's 501(c)(3) status at this time. (18:30)
- Bradley mentioned that IRS decisions don't make precedent, and if there's a dispute, it would go to USA Tax Court (19:00)
- Mozilla Foundation's odd hybrid for-profit/non-profit model was audited by the IRS, and Mozilla Foundation settled with the IRS. (20:22)
- Open Stack Foundation was initially denied 501(c)(6) status, as reported on Mark McLoughlin's blog. (25:10)
- Bradley promised links to both Yorba's 501(c)(3) denial letter from the IRS and Open Stack Foundation's 501(c)(6) denial letter from the IRS. (The response to the IRS from OpenStack, written by DLA Piper, OpenStack Foundation's law firm, is also available, too. (27:15)
- Bradley and Karen discussed Board of Directors meetings in FaiF 0x45: I'm Board (31:40)
- Bradley mentioned the How fresh stays fresh campaign, which includes the Nature's Pause Button television commercials by the American Frozen Food Institute, which is a 501(c)(6) organization. It's FY 2012 Form 990 is the most recent on available.
- Bradley also mentioned the Beef: It's What's For Dinner advertisting campaign that has existed for decades in the USA, which is sponsored by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Inc. which is a 501(c)(6) as well. It's FY 2012 Form 990 is the most recent on available. (35:40)
- Bradley further mentioned the Pork: the other white meat advertising campaign, which has also existed for decades but is now called the Pork: Be Inspired campaign, seems a bit more dubious in its non-profit existence. It appears to be funded by the National Pork Board Foundation, which is ostensibly a 501(c)(3) but has no assets, revnue nor expenses, and appears to be a front for an org called the America's Pork Producers / Pork Checkoff, which appears to be some quasi-govermental agency related to pork (in other words, it's pork for pork). More research would probably be needed to figure out better what's going on here with regard to non-profit status, but it seems that unlike the Beef ads, which are clearly funded by a 501(c)(6), this campaign is funded by a separate legislation, presumably unrelated to §501(c). There is, BTW, also, a 501(c)(5) called the National Pork Producers Council, which appears to be where the big money is (— not surprisingly — 501(c)(4)'s and 501(c)(5)'s often make 501(c)(6)'s and 501(c)(3)'s look tiny by comparison). (36:13)
Segment 1 (39:43)
Conservancy and OSI jointly announced a working group on IRS applications and denials. (40:49)
September 11, 2014
0x4D: 2013 Interview: Poettering & Day on Sandboxed GNOME Applications
Summary
Karen Sandler interviews Lennart Poettering and Alan Day during the GNOME Asia Summit 2013. Bradley and Karen comment on this interview.
This show was released on Thursday 11 September 2014; its running time is 00:44:39.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:38)
Bradley and Karen introduce Karen's interview with Lennart Poettering and Alan Day.
Segment 1 (02:06)
Karen interviews Lennart Poettering and Alan Day about Lennart's Sandboxed Applications for GNOME talk at GNOME Asia Summit 2013.
Segment 1 (35:24)
- Bradley mentioned his comment during the GPLv3 process regarding the Ty Coon issue. (41:20)
August 26, 2014
0x4C: Copyleft vs permissive vs CLAs
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss the talk, Copyleft vs. Permissive vs. Contributor License Agreements: A Veteran’s Perspective by Simo Sorce given at FOSDEM 2013 on Sunday 3 February 2013.
This show was released on Tuesday 26 August 2014; its running time is 01:14:47.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:38)
Bradley and Karen introduce Simo's talk.
Segment 1 (00:03:02)
The slides from Simo's talk are available, if you want to follow along
Segment 2 (00:59:50)
- Bradley menitoned his blog post about CLA's on Conservancy's website. (01:00:10)
Segment 3 (01:10:22)
Bradley and Karen are still trying to decide what to do about the FOSDEM 2014 talks.
August 5, 2014
0x4B: CLA Panel Discussion
Summary
Bradley and Karen host a panel discussion on CLAs with Van Lindberg and Richard Fontana.
This show was released on Tuesday 5 August 2014; its running time is 00:54:05.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:38)
Bradley and Karen introduce the panel discussion.
Segment 1 (01:28)
- The panel guests are Van Lindberg and Richard Fontana.
- Van quoted from the Apache Corporate CLA. (40:55)
Segment 2 (48:17)
- Bradley and Karen wrap up the discussion.
- Bradley mentioned the AKG C1000S which we use to record the oggcast. (50:40)
July 30, 2014
0x4A: See LA?
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss Contributor Licensing Agreements, which pulls material from Bradley's blog posts on the subject.
This show was released on Wednesday 30 July 2014; its running time is 00:44:34.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:36)
- Bradley mentioned FSF's copyright assignment process. (05:50)
- Bradley mentioned RMS' essay regarding what you should do if a company asks you to assign copyright on Free Software. (14:00)
- Open Stack is reconsidering their CLA.
- Bradley mentioned again that goofy Eclipse contributor poster. (27:22)
July 18, 2014
0x49: Why Free Software Phone Doesn't Exist
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss the talk, Why the free software phone doesn't exist by Aaron Williamson given at FOSDEM 2013 on Sunday 3 February 2013.
This show was released on Friday 18 July 2014; its running time is 01:08:30.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:37)
Bradley and Karen introduce the talk.
Segment 1 (04:06)
Aaron's slides area available.
Segment 2 (56:41)
- Bradley mentioned dakota imaging where he used to work. (1:02:15) dacotag imaging
- Karen mentioned Aaron's OSCON 2010 talk (but we incorrectly said it was 2009). (1:04:35)
July 1, 2014
0x48: copyleft-next
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss the talk, copyleft-next: an Introduction by Richard Fontana given at FOSDEM 2013 on Sunday 3 February 2013.
This show was released on Tuesday 1 July 2014; its running time is 01:35:07.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:37)
Bradley and Karen introduce the talk.
Segment 1 (05:37)
The slides Fontana's talk on copyleft-next are available.
Segment 2 (01:06:51)
- Bradley mentioned the issue of Noam Chomsky's points on concision (01:13:23).
- Bradley mentioned the anti-GPL keynote by Tom Preseton-Werner of Github at OSCON 2013. (01:14:53)
- Bradley and Karen discussed the Harvey Birdman Rule. (1:27:45)
- Bradey mentioned a comment he posted about CHR-governed policy meetings. (01:29:00)
June 19, 2014
0x47: Why Are You a Software Freedom Zealot?
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss why software freedom as a political, social and moral issue is important to each of them personally.
This show was released on Thursday 19 June 2014; its running time is 01:09:27.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:36)
- Bradley mentioned that he used to frequently give talks on why software freedom is important to him. There are available on FSF's Audio/Video website three different recordings of that talk, usually titled Software Freedom and the GNU Generation. (01:28)
- Bradley's first distribution was SLS. (18:20)
- Bradley mentioned that OpenStack was denied 501(c)(6) trade association status by the IRS. (37:56)
- Karen mentioned the Cooper Union law suit. (48:40)
June 3, 2014
0x46: O'Sullivan's Legally Cementing Licences in Legislation
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss the talk, Legally Cementing Licences in Legislation: Two Law Merchant Models for Free Software Licences by Maureen O’Sullivan given at FOSDEM 2013 on Sunday 3 February 2013.
This show was released on Tuesday 3 June 2014; its running time is 01:06:41.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:37)
- Bradley mentioned the Planet money t-shirt story (03:04)
- Bradley mentioned he buys Union made sweat pants (04:42)
Segment 1 (00:06:48)
Bradley and Karen introduce the talk.
Segment 2 (00:07:20)
This segment is the talk, Legally Cementing Licences in Legislation: Two Law Merchant Models for Free Software Licences by Maureen O’Sullivan given at FOSDEM 2013 on Sunday 3 February 2013. You can follow along with the slides.
Segment 3 (00:50:55)
- Bradley mentioned a talk he gave on 2005-03-12 at UC Irvine to a workshop of academics meeting about the research area of Computing Communities. Bradley still has some email archives regarding this, but can't find any online link to the workshop (URLs in the emails are all dead) or a recording of his talk. (58:52).
- As Bradley mentioned, ESR self-identifies as a gun nut. (01:00:19)
- Bradley mentioned FaiF 0x3A, which had Gabriel Holloway's talk (01:03:27)
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