February 13, 2013

Episode 0x37: Copyright Assignment Again

Summary

Karen and Bradley discuss the LWN article, GnuTLS, copyright assignment, and GNU project governance and other issues related to copyright assignment.

This show was released on Wednesday 13 February 2013; its running time is 01:01:15.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:46)

• Bradley didn't want his words compared to the Ayn Rand's quote from an interview with Phil Donahue where she said I'm not going to die, it's just that world will end. (02:54)
• Bradley discussed the reaction to on 0x36 that occurred in this identi.ca thread. (04:20)
• Bradley and Karen discussed the LWN article, GnuTLS, copyright assignment, and GNU project governance. (11:15)
• Bradley pointed out that every other copyleft license allows for relicensing under newer versions automatically (i.e., they have an automatic -or-later ), and Karen asked whether Sun's CDDL does. Bradley checked later, Karen was correct that CDDL's later version clause (Section 4) is similar to the GPL policy. (23:00) However, Fontana wrote to us on IRC to say CDDL's license upgradeability clause is not entirely like GPL's. The GPL states that if no version number is specified, any version can be used. CDDL does not say this; it seems to assume that it will always be clear what version CDDL code will be distributed under, whereas GPL seems to assume otherwise.
• Bradley mentioned the interview he did with The H Online on GPL enforcement. (41:57)

Tags: faif, GNU, GPL, FSF, licensing, copyright

September 14, 2012

Episode 0x31: GNU Mediagoblin

Summary

Karen and Bradley interview Christopher Allan Webber of the GNU Mediagoblin project.

This show was released on Friday 14 September 2012; its running time is 00:45:39.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:31)

Karen and Bradley introduce the interview.

Segment 0 (00:56)

• Karen and Bradley interview their guest, Christopher Allan Webber of the GNU Mediagoblin project.
• GNU Mediagoblin is licensed under the Affero GPL, but does not require copyright assignment and the developers have no plans to seek a proprietary licensing business.
• Bradley mentioned this dent by Stephen Fry on identi.ca, but that was in fact not his last dent as Bradley said. (21:50)
• GNU Mediagoblin is working on a fundraising video and will start a new fundraising campaign soon.
• Chris discussed this comic about trolls that was part of the slides of Chris' OSCON talk. (27:07)
• Chris mentioned the Open Source Almost Everything essay from GitHub's founder. (28:30)
• Karen mentioned Mike Linksvayer's talk in FaiF 0x2E. (39:00)

Segment 1 (43:36)

GNU Mediagoblin will be launching a fundraising campaign soon. Check back here for details later!

Tags: faif, GNU, copyright, AGPL

June 5, 2012

0x2B: Deb Nicholson of OIN

Summary

Karen and Bradley interview Deb Nicholson of Open Invention Network, GNU MediaGoblin and Open Hatch.

This show was released on Tuesday 5 June 2012; its running time is 00:48:12.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:36)

• Karen announced her pregnancy. (01:50)
• Bradley will be at OSCON, Karen might be, and Karen will be at GUADEC. Bradley will be at LinuxCon North America and LinuxCon Europe. (03:00)

Segment 1 (04:40)

• Deb Nicholson was previously on the show as Episode 0x25: FOSDEM 2012 Patents Panel. (06:00)
• Deb mentioned Linux System Definition, which is the OIN-published list of things that OIN members license their patents to each other on. (07:12)
• Deb and Bradley are debating Bradley's comment regarding Deb's points on the panel on 0x25. If you go back to listen to 0x25, the context for the comment they're debating starts around 38:00 in 0x25. (19:20)
• It's possible etymology of the verb “to harp” may indeed come from the musical instrument, not harpy. (31:00)
• Karen mentioned The Ada Initiative. (32:52)

Segment 2 (38:54)

Bradley and Karen talk about plans for upcoming shows.

Tags: faif, GNU, patents

April 26, 2011

Episode 0x0E: Open Source Projects and Corporate Entanglement

Summary

This episode is a recording of Richard Fontana's talk, Open Source Projects and Corporate Entanglement from the 2011 Linux Collaboration Summit, with some commentary from Bradley and Karen on the talk.

This show was released on Tuesday 26 April 2011; its running time is 01:02:48.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:34)

• Bradley is still recovering from a rhinovirus which he didn't take care of and also made him sicker, which explains the problems with his voice. In fact, the coughing in the background during Fontana's talk is all Bradley. He apologizes. (00:50)
• This show is Richard Fontana's Linux Collaboration Summit 2011 talk, Open Source Projects and Corporate Entanglement. (03:24)

Segment 1 (03:48)

• Richard Fontana's slides for his talk, Open Source Projects and Corporate Entanglement are available on his website. (04:29)
• Bradley was live-denting Fontana's LCS talk. (04:31)
• Richard Fontana is the purveyor of the disturbing group on identi.ca. (04:30)
• Fontana makes reference to a Bradley's blog post on switching back to Debian from Ubuntu. (05:55)
• Fontana pointed out that the GNU Manifesto deals a lot with how Free Software is completely compatible with many business models. (12:30)
• Fontana pointed out that many of the relationships between companies in Free software have great variability in level of transparency. (16:00)
• In the background, you hear Bradley saying something. He's giving Josh Berkus credit for the phrase throw code over the wall, a phrase which both Fontana and Bradley now use regularly. (32:28)

Segment 2 (48:25)

• Fontana made an interesting analogy to commissioned art and its similarity to FLOSS. (50:33)
• Fontana noted later on identica that he does support non-profit as solution to entanglement problem. (54:48)
• Bradley mentioned the 60 Minutes story about Mortenson's Central Asia Institute (CAI). (55:30)
• Fontana now talking about GE/NBC relationship, but Bradley was surprised that Fontana didn't mention Ben Bagdikian's book, The Media Monopoly. (18:26, 56:30)
• Bradley was glad that Fontana called proprietary relicensing illegitimate. Bradley points out that sometimes community members, including himself, have too easily forgiven business models on the edges of software freedom. (25:13, 30:50 58:30)

Tags: faif, GNU, licensing, non-profit, Richard Fontana

January 4, 2011

Episode 0x06: GRUB, Zulu Foxtrot Sierra

Summary

Bradley and Karen discuss the inclusion of ZFS GPLv2-or-later code inclusion into GNU GRUB.

This show was released on Tuesday 4 January 2011; its running time is 00:47:58.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:35)

• Bradley and Karen discussed the inclusion of ZFS code now included in GRUB, as the GRUB Project announced and was covered at LWN by Jonathan Corbet.
• It's not mandatory that GNU projects have assignment to the FSF. The GNU Maintainer's guide discuss the requirements when items are assigned to FSF. (14:40)
• FSF requires that the entire codebase be assigned once GNU project maintainers choose to assign copyrights. Conservancy's policy on copyright assignment differs here; Conservancy will accept partial copyright assignment. (16:07)
• Bradley mentioned the COBOL front end to GCC that is not in the main GCC codebase because it is not copyright assigned to FSF. (17:40)
• Bradley and Karen discussed the Squeak relicensing last call. (25:49)
• Bradley posted a comment to Corbet's article. (32:30)

Final (45:45)

• The calendar Bradley was thinking of was the International Fixed Calendar, which Wikipedia confirms, with a sourced link, was used by the Eastman Kodak Company from rom 1928 to 1989.

Tags: faif, GNU, GPL, FSF