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Free as in Freedom
Displaying casts tagged licensing
April 2, 2019
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0x65: Linux Foundation's Community Bridge
Summary
Bradley and Karen discuss and critique the new initiative by the Linux Foundation called CommunityBridge. The podcast includes various analysis that expands upon their blog post about Linux Foundation's CommunityBridge.This show was released on Tuesday 2 April 2019; its running time is 00:47:17.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:36)
- Conservancy helped Free Software Foundation and GNOME Foundation begin fiscal sponsorship work. (07:50)
- Conservancy has always been very coordinated with Software in the Public Interest, which is a FOSS fiscal sponsor that predates Conservancy. (08:26)
- Conservancy helped NumFocus get started as a fiscal sponsor by providing advice. (08:53)
- The above are all 501(c)(3) charities, but there are also 501(c)(6) fiscal sponsors, such as Linux Foundation and Eclipse Foundation. (10:00)
- Bradley mentioned that projects that are forks can end up in different fiscal sponsors, such as Hudson being in Eclipse Foundation, and Jenkins being associated with a Linux Foundation sub-org. (10:30)
- Bradley mentioned that any project — be it SourceForge, GitHub, or Community Bridge — that attempts to convince FOSS developers to use proprietary software for their projects is immediately suspect (12:00)
- Open Collective, a for-profit company seeking to do fiscal sponsorship (but attempting to release their code for it) is likely under the worst “competitive” threat from this initiative. (19:50)
Segment 1 (21:23)
- Projects that use CommunityBridge are required to act in the common business interest of the Linux Foundation members. (27:30)
- Board of Directors seats at the Linux Foundation are for sale, according to their by-laws. (28:50)
- Bradley advises that you should not put anything copylefted into CommunityBridge — given Linux Foundation's position on copyleft and citing the ArduPilot/DroneCode example. (29:50)
- CommunityBridge appears to only allow governance based on the “benevolent dictator for life model” (31:40), at least with regard to who controls the money (34:30)
- Bradley mentioned the LWN article about Community Bridge. (33:22)
Segment 2 (36:54)
- Karen mentioned that CommunityBridge also purports to address diversity and security issues for FOSS projects. (37:00)
- Bradley mentioned the code hosted on k.sfconservancy.org and also the Reimbursenator project that PSU students wrote. (42:00)
Segment 3 (42:44)
Bradley and Karen discuss (or, possibly don't) discuss what's coming up on the next episode. Fact of the matter is that this announcement wasn't written yet when we recorded this episode and we weren't sure if 0x65 would be released before or after that announcement was released. We'll be discussing that topic on 0x66.
December 31, 2018
0x5F: Was 2018 the Year of Non-FOSS Licensing?
Summary
Bradley and Karen return, as promised, in 2018 (just barely)! They discuss the many non-FOSS and otherwise software-freedom-unfriendly licenses that have been promulgated in 2018.
This show was released on Monday 31 December 2018; its running time is 00:36:49.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:36)
Bradley and Karen discuss ideas for what to do with the oggcast going forward.
Segment 2 (07:49)
- Bradley mentioned the field of endeavor restriction in Open Source Defintion. (09:20)
- Bradley mentioned how badly Amazon treats its workers who pack boxes, which was widely reported this month (10:22).
- Bradley referenced that someone changed attempted to change a license on a project to prohibit use by USA border protection agents. This was the Lerna project, and Bradley wrote a blog post about it earlier this year. (12:14)
- Bradley mentioned the controversy about the new MongoDB license, the SS Public License, which Bradley also wrote a blog post about earlier this year (14:09)
- karen reports that many people at the Sustain OSS Conference were surprised that sustaining the idelogy of software freedom was something that people value. (27:10)
November 24, 2015
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)
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 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 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)
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)
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)
September 4, 2013
0x42: libVLC LGPL Relicensing
Summary
Karen and Bradley listen to and discuss Jean-Baptiste Kempf's talk from FOSDEM 2013, entitled Relicensing libVLC and VLC modules from GPL to LGPL.
This show was released on Wednesday 4 September 2013; its running time is 01:25:43.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:28)
- The plural of hiatus appears to be hiatukset, but hiatuses is the proper English. (01:50)
- Bradley adopted two dogs from a shelter. They like kongs (02:30)
- Bradley's wife has a blog with pictures of their dogs. (04:30)
Segment 1 (00:05:52)
Jean-Baptiste Kempf slides are available for this talk.
Segment 2 (01:03:20)
- Bradley had written a a blog post about the VLC relicensing. (01:03:48)
- Bradley mentioned a an article in The Onion about pugs known health problems (01:15:47)
- Karen mentioned The Last GUADEC blog post.
Segment 3 (01:21:00)
Bradley and Karen discussed the release of the ExFAT Samsung source code.
August 2, 2013
Episode 0x40: Alison Chaiken on Free Software in Cars
Summary
Note: initially, from 2013-08-01 18:30 through 2013-08-02 08:40 (US/Eastern), the audio file links in the feed did not work. That has been corrected.
Bradley and Karen interview Alison Chaiken about Free Software in cars.
This show was released on Friday 2 August 2013; its running time is 00:51:30.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:38)
Bradley and Karen introduce the interview.
Segment 1 (00:01:43)
- Bradley and Karen interview Alison Chaiken about Free Software in the automotive industry.
- Alison mentioned the Genivi Alliance, which is an industry trade association with some interest in “Open Source”.
- Alison presented a session at LibrePlanet about the Right to Repair act in Massachusetts. (00:14:30)
- Alison encouraged listens to get involved with Right to Repair and the Massachusetts Right to Repair.
Segment 2 (00:36:09)
- Karen moderated a panel at the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2013 on Automotive issues (37:12)
June 13, 2013
0x3E: Mozilla - Licensing in the Trenches
Summary
Karen and Bradley listen to and discuss Gervase Markham's talk from FOSDEM 2013, entitled Mozilla: Licensing In The Trenches.
This show was released on Thursday 13 June 2013; its running time is 01:11:55.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:34)
- Bradley encouraged listeners to Conservancy's campaign for non-profit accounting software. (02:10)
- Bradley mentioned his 2009 blog post encouraging people to donate to Free Software charities (02:50)
- Karen asked people to donate to the GNOME Foundation privacy campaign (04:11)
Segment 1 (00:04:57)
Gerv's slides from his FOSDEM 2013 talk can be downloaded from FOSDEM's website.
Segment 2 (00:51:48)
Bradley and Karen discuss Gerv's talk.
May 7, 2013
0x3C: FOSDEM 2013: How to Share a Trademark
Summary
Karen and Bradley listen to and discuss Pamela Chestek's talk from FOSDEM 2013, entitled How to Share a Trademark.
This show was released on Tuesday 7 May 2013; its running time is 01:23:47.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:33)
Karen and Bradley introduce the talk.
Segment 0 (00:02:05)
Pam gave us slides, but it's all in one big SVG.
Segment 2 (00:55:10)
- The talk that Bradley mentioned was this talk that Karen gave at Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit 2012; he was unable to find a recording. (57:04)
- Note that most of the time the word
source
was used in the talk and Karen's comments, it meansorigin
, notsource code
. (01:05:55) - Bradley mentioned this Planet Money story about the 5¢ coke. (01:21:37)
April 11, 2013
Episode 0x3B: FOSDEM 2013: Should We Embrace App Stores?
Summary
Karen and Bradley listen to and discuss Simon Phipps' and Amanda Brock's talk from FOSDEM 2013, entitled Should We Embrace App Stores?.
This show was released on Thursday 11 April 2013; its running time is 01:11:25.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:33)
Karen and Bradley introduce the talk.
Segment 1 (00:03:03)
- Simon and Amanda used no slides during their talk.
- Amanda misquotes Bradley at 07:30. Bradley said:
An unenforced copyleft is the moral equivalent of a permissive license
, not that you give a license automatically not by enforcing. You can listen to FaiF Episode 0x38 to verify.
Segment 1 (00:49:35)
Bradley and Karen discuss the talk.
April 3, 2013
Episode 0x3A: FOSDEM 2013: FOSS Code Goes In And Never Comes Out
Summary
Karen and Bradley listen to and discuss Gabriel Holloway's talk from FOSDEM 2013, entitled FOSS code goes in and never comes out: The Challenge of Sandboxed Proprietary Cloud Services.
This show was released on Wednesday 3 April 2013; its running time is 01:24:33.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:00:33)
Karen and Bradley introduce the talk.
Segment 1 (00:05:48)
The speaker's that you hear are:
- Gabriel Holloway, who gives the talk
- Till Jaeger asks the first question.
- A few other questions are asked, but we're unsure who the speakers are.
- Tom Marble, asks a question later.
Unfortunately, Gabe didn't provide us with slides.
Segment 2 (00:52:25)
- Bradley mentioned the Berne Convention on Copyright. (01:07:19)
- Karen mentioned Cooper Union and how they are in danger of running out of money for their full tuition scholarships. (01:10:00)
- Bradley looked but couldn't find the NPR story about terms of use. (01:19:37)
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)
May 29, 2012
0x2A: Conservancy's Compliance Project
Summary
Karen and Bradley discuss Software Freedom Conservancy's announcement regarding its coordinated license compliance program.
This show was released on Tuesday 29 May 2012; its running time is 00:32:53.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:36)
Karen and Bradley discuss Software Freedom Conservancy's announcement regarding its coordinated license compliance program.