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.
If you'd like to further support Free as in Freedom, please become a supporter of Software Freedom Conservancy, the charity where Bradley and Karen work.
![[Ogg/Vorbis Audio RSS]](/static/img/cast/rss-audioogg.png)
![[MP3 Audio RSS]](/static/img/cast/rss-audiomp3.png)
Free as in Freedom
July 1, 2014
![[Get cast in Ogg/Vorbis
format]](/static/img/cast/audio_ogg_button.png)
![[Get cast in MP3 format]](/static/img/cast/audio_mp3_button.png)
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)
May 22, 2012
0x29: Richard Fontana at Linux Collaboration Summit 2012
Summary
Karen and Bradley play and discuss Richard Fontana's Linux Collaboration Summit 2012 talk, The Decline of the GPL, and What To Do About It.
This show was released on Tuesday 22 May 2012; its running time is 01:19:27.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:36)
Karen mentioned a legal summit where Richard and Karen spoke; the same event where the organizers said having Bradley speak would be the same as having the caterers speak.
Segment 1 (04:46)
Fontana's slides for this talk are available on Fontana's website.
Note that this talk is a longer version of Ricahrd Fontana's FOSDEM 2012 talk, The (possible) decline of the GPL, and what to do about it from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.
Segment 2 (57:24)
Bradley and Karen discuss Fontana's talk.
March 29, 2012
0x25: FOSDEM 2012 Patents Panel
Summary
Karen and Bradley play and discuss Panel on Patents, moderated by Karen Sandler, with Ciarán O'Riordan, Benjamin Henrion, and Deb Nicholson from the FOSDEM 2012 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom.
This show was released on Thursday 29 March 2012; its running time is 00:48:59.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:35)
- This American Life issued a retraction of the story we mentioned on 0x24. This American Life released a transcript or mp3 of the audio of the retraction. (02:21)
- Karen and Bradley introduce the panel.
Segment 1 (03:58)
This is the recording of the panel. Some of the questions aren't completely audible, but Dan did a pretty good job boosting it in places.
Segment 2 (32:21)
- IBM's amicus brief in Bilski clearly shows that IBM is pro-software patent. (33:48)
- The Linux System Definition which defines the only patents available for licensing by OIN licensees, was unilaterally updated recently without consulting the Free Software community.
- Keith Bergelt of OIN will speak at Linux Collaboration 2012 on the Legal track, which Bradley is chairing (35:29)
- OIN is a for-profit company. (37:54)
- IBM has attacked Free Software projects with patents, such as TurboHercules (39:22)
- IBM is the largest software patent holder in the world. (44:27)
- Red Hat refuses to grant a patent license for patent use in Free software, they have only a weak promise that allows them to sell of patents to others who may enforce against Free Software projects, or which could be revoked. (46:26)
December 16, 2011
Episode 0x1E: Our Non-Profits Considered
Summary
Karen and Bradley discuss recent debates about the value of non-profit organizations for Free Software.
This show was released on Friday 16 December 2011; its running time is 00:44:33.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:34)
- Fontana (and other Red Hat employees) pointed out some imprecision in what Bradley said in Episode 0x1D about Debian non-free. (01:07)
- A call for participation has been announced for the Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom at FOSDEM 2012. Please submit a proposal by 30 December 2011 (04:30)
- A recent debate about non-profits started, initiated by a blog post called Apache Considered Harmful. (12:55)
- Karen and Bradley briefly mentioned that some now believe that Considered Harmful Considered Harmful (13:16)
- A long thread on this issue occurred on the FLOSS Foundations mailing list (13:45)
- Bradley made an official Conservancy Blog post about the value of non-profits for Free Software (14:17)
- Sourceforge became proprietary software in 2001, as is well-described in this by The Sourceforge proprietarization debacle is well described in an article by Loïc Dachary. (19:19)
- Bradley mentioned FaiFCast Episode 0x11, which discussed the OpenOffice.org/Apache/LibreOffice situation. (44:35)
- Bradley pointed out that this debate conflates a lot of different
issues, and tried to list all the conflated questions here:
- Should a non-profit home decide what technical infrastructure is used for a software freedom project? And if so, what should it be?
- If the projects doesn't provide technological services, should non-profits allow their projects to rely on for-profits for technological or other services?
- Should a non-profit home set political and social positions that must be followed by the projects? If so, how strictly should they be enforced?
- Should copyrights be held by the non-profit home of the project, or with the developers, or a mix of the two?
- Should the non-profit dictate licensing requirements on the project? If so, how many licenses are ok?
- Should a non-profit dictate strict copyright provenance requirements on their projects? If not, should the non-profit at least provide guidelines and recommendations?
August 30, 2011
Episode 0x17: Contributor Agreements Considered Harmful
Summary
Bradley and Karen play a speech recording of Richard Fontana's presentation at OSCON 2011, entitled Contributor Agreements Considered Harmful.
Note: this show and the slides from Richard Fontana are licensed under CC-By-SA-3.0 USA. This will be the new license of the show for this and future episodes.
This show was released on Tuesday 30 August 2011; its running time is 01:03:49.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:34)
- This show is a recording of Richard Fontana's talk Contributor Agreements Considered Harmful. (03:13)
Segment 1 (03:34)
- Richard Fontana has made his slides from his talk available on his website.
- Bradley live-dented Fontana's talk from OSCON.
- Richard Fontana references Michael Meeks' essay, Some thoughts on Copyright Assignment (29:55)
Segment 2 (45:17)
- Bradley and Karen were on a panel discussion on copyright assignment at Desktop Summit. (45:33)
- Bradley mentioned that Mark Shuttleworth's obsession with cadence had a similar weird effect on a different debate. (58:30)
- Karen has done some pro bono work for PubPat, and also Question Copyright (01:01:30)
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)