October 13, 2009

Bradley and special guest co-host, Aaron Williamson, discuss all about the amici briefs filed in the Bilski Supreme Court case.

Running time: 01:19:14.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:33)

• Aaron Williamson is the co-host this week, filling in for Karen Sandler. (01:10)
• Bradley discussed the differences between Classic Latin pronunciation Church Latin pronunciation. (03:30)
• Bradley pointed out that declined language. (04:40)
• Aaron explained what an amicus curiae brief. (06:30)
• Bradley mentioned that we also discussed the lower court's decision in Bilksi case in Episode 0x01. (06:53)
• Aaron explained what it means for the Supreme Court to “grant cert”. (07:44)
• Aaron explained the details of the Benson case. (11:05)
• Aaron explained what dicta is, and discussed some of the dicta in Benson. (11:54)
• Aaron discussed the details of the Flook case. (13:50)
• Aaron explained the Diamond v. Diehr case, which discussed patents on vulcanized rubber. (16:30)
• Aaron discussed the State Street Federal Circuit case. (22:30)
• Bradley mentioned that the Benson case reminds him of Benson, the television show. (30:05)

Segment 1 (33:52)

• Aaron described the arguments in SFLC's Bilski amicus brief. (35:15)
• Aaron mentioned the Feist copyright case, which shares a name with a musician. (41:40)
• Bradley encouraged the listeners to convince Feist to write a song about Feist. (43:40)
• Aaron discussed Larry Lessig's Eldred case. (45:10)
• Aaron mentioned that Eldred was attempting to overturn the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (45:42)
• Aaron discussed the FSF's Bilski amicus brief, which goes into greater detail of the negative impact of patents on Free Software. (52:20)
• Aaron and Bradley discussed the Red Hat's amicus brief (PDF), which is mostly supportive of Free Software. (55:00)
• Aaron and Bradley discussed how IBM's Bilski brief (PDF) is unfriendly to Free Software (57:20)
• Aaron and Bradley discussed how the Hollaar/IEEE brief (PDF) specifically attacks Free Software. (61:00)
• Bradley mentioned the Quagaars from the Red Dwarf episode, “Waiting for God”. (66:05)
• Bradley mentioned again that patent reform isn't helpful, and referenced Stallman's essay, Patent Reform is not Enough. (71:22)

Tags: bkuhn, patents, bilski, aaronw

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September 29, 2009

Bradley and Karen give the ath5k talk that they previously gave at the Linux Collaboration Summit in April 2009.

Running time: 00:41:12.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:31)

• Bradley looked for a web reference on the “you'll know it is time to turn the page, when … “, but could find none.

Segment 1 (04:03)

• Follow along with the slides for this talk. (Javascript required for full effect)

Segment 2 (36:55)

• Bradley mentioned his desire to keep a good bridge between the copyleft and non-copyleft communities. (38:35)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, copyrights, gpl, linux

---

September 15, 2009

Karen and Bradley discuss issues surrounding the licensing of software documentation, and FSF's objection to the Google Books Proposed Settlement.

Running time: 00:50:41.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:31)

• Bradley mentioned the topic for this show was suggested on identi.ca (01:15) by Dan Scott (01:39) who works on a project called Evergreen (02:36)
• Dan had asked earlier about FaiF documentation licenses. (03:04) Bradley met him at FSOSS, which is held at Seneca at York. (Bradley misspoke during the podcast and confused Seneca and York.) (01:30)
• Bradley talked about this history of the GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL). (04:40)
• Bradley mentioned the (mostly) defunct Open Publication License. (05:37)
• Karen referenced the Debian decision about FDL. (06:20)
• The FDL allows for invariant sections. (10:50)
• Debian decided that invariant sections are not DFSG-free. (11:20)
• FSF released GNU FDL 1.3 to allow relicensing of some FDL works under CC-By-SA. FSF's announced this in November 2008 and Bradley blogged about it. (19:00)
• FSF does have a discussion draft of the GNU Simpler Free Documentation License available. (22:03)
• Bradley recommends licensing documentation under (GPLv3-or-later|CC-By-SA-2.0-or-later) or (GPLv3-or-later|FDL-2.1-or-later|CC-By-SA-2.0-or-later). (28:00, 32:05)
• Bradley restated his hatred for the term “dual licensing” because of its ambiguity. He refers to the above as “disjunctive dual licensing” (30:10)
• Bradley and Karen mentioned they will talk about public domain eventually, but for the moment, people should look at CC-0. (32:30)
• Karen says we'll do the public domain show before Episode 0xDEAD, which would be our 57,006th show.

Segment 1 (33:47)

• Karen talked about the SFLC helped the FSF file an objection to the Google Books settlement. (34:50)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, copyrights, license compatibility, documentation

---

September 1, 2009

Karen and Bradley interview Steve Holden of the Python Software Foundation.

Running time: 00:36:03.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:29)

• Law school is three years in the USA. (02:30)
• Karen avoided being quizzed on Dynamic vs. lexical scoping. (06:00)

Segment 1 (06:28)

Steve has been using Python since version 1.5, which was released in 1998. (08:15)

Steve was previously the chairman of Sun UK User Group, and was also involved with DECUS. (10:40)

PSF funds various smaller conferences around the world. (12:30)

PSF's Board is all volunteer. (13:22)

The book that Karen and Steve kept referencing is Fiscal Sponsorship: 6 Ways to Do It Right by Gregory L.Colvin. (17:10)

Steve discussed that the Python License is a permissive Free Software license. (19:20)

Steve discussed Python contributor agreement. (21:43)

Python is trademarked by the Python Software Foundation in the USA. (22:39)

Bradley and Steve discussed the scope of trademarks. No worries about pet stores, they can still sell pythons even though Python is trademarked. (25:30)

Bradley and Steve also mentioned Twisted which is written in Python and is a member of the Software Freedom Conservancy. (26:00)

Video is available from PyCon. (27:20)

Steve mentioned the Parrot Project, which is run by Allison Randal. (31:09)

Segment 2 (32:38)

• Bradley mentioned that he's contributed to Pynie, Python on Parrot. (33:20)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, non-profits, python, Steve Holden

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August 18, 2009

Bradley and Karen discuss a few different types of for-profit business models that are common around codebases licensed under the GPL.

Running time: 00:30:45.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:30)

• Bradley mentioned Monty's blog post about the licensing of MySQL (01:10)
• Bradley pointed out that “dual licensing” is a misleading term for a proprietary relicensing business model, as discussed on the Your Questions podcast. (02:33)
• Bradley mentioned that he'd been making money as an independent consultant, which he wrote about in 2001 during the original Microsoft attacks on the GPL. (04:42)
• Bradley mentioned Cygnus Solutions as a good model of a Free Software, GPL-based company. (06:54)
• Bradley also mentioned Codesourcery as another example of a good GPL-based company (13:24)
• Bradley mentioned Dave Neary's talk at OSCON, Does Working with Free Software Have to Be So Hard? (23:52)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, for-profit, gpl

---

August 4, 2009

Bradley and Karen interview Justin Erenkrantz of the Apache Software Foundation.

Running time: 00:30:13.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:32)

• Karen liked the Thursday keynote by Kirrily Robert called Standing Out in the Crowd. (01:39)
• Jesse Vincent gave a talk about hacking the Kindle to have a community-built distribution on it. (02:17)
• Jesse is also known for his work on RT, and more recently SD. He's also worked on an Android application, K-9.
• Karen enjoyed Liz Henry's talk on accessibility and hacking medical equipment. (03:11)
• Microsoft claimed they announced their Linux code release at OSCON last Monday at 09:00, but Bradley was there and saw only five people in line for tutorial registration, and no announcement taking place. (03:25)
• Bradley wrote a blog post about the Microsoft code release. (04:01)

Segment 1 (05:23)

• Justin mentioned the tenth anniversary of Apache Foundation which will be celebrated at their conferences. (05:42)
• Justin mentioned Roy Fielding, who was a founding director of the Apache Software Foundation. (06:55)
• Justin and Bradley discussed the benefits of the Apache 2.0 License, particularly its patent provisions. (07:45)
• Justin talked about the Apache Incubator, where new projects come to Apache. (16:01)
• Justin mentioned Spam Assassin was one of the first to come through the Incubator. (16:41)
• The Apache Foundation seeks to free up developers to hack so they don't need to worry about organizational issues (18:05)
• According to Justin, Apache Foundation does not support individual project targeted donations. (19:20)
• Apache Foundation gives PR and marketing support to projects. (21:01)
• Microsoft became a platinum fiscal sponsor of Apache Foundation last year, and Justin reports that now Microsoft employees are contributing code. (22:05)
• Justin encourages everyone to attend ApacheCon US. (25:30)

Segment 2 (26:07)

• Bradley mentioned that one of the key benefits of Apache Foundation appears to be the mentoring for both individuals and companies. (26:50)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, non-profits, apache, Justin Erenkrantz

---

July 21, 2009

Bradley and Karen discuss their panels at OSCON 2009.

Running time: 00:29:30.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:14)

Bradley mentioned that you can hear a follow up to the C#/Mono and patented language issue, which Bradley and Karen discussed on SFLS 0x11 in an interview with Bradley on Linux Outlaws 102.

Segment 1 (01:35)

• Bradley and Karen are presenting at OSCON 2009.
• After the recording of the show, Bradley and Aaron were asked to present the GPL enforcement talk that Karen and Bradley discussed. The talk is open to the public, so you can come by if you are in San Jose.
• Bradley is moderating a panel at OSCON, With Software as a Service, Is Only the Network Luddite Free?.
• Karen mentioned Bradley's previous talks on the subject.
• Bradley mentioned the Conan O'Brien joke, YouTwitFace.
• Karen is moderating a panel at OSCON, What's in a Name: Can Trademarks be Helpful to Free Software Projects?.
• Bradley told the story of naming GNU Classpath.
• Karen helped in the naming of Pidgin due a trademark dispute.

Tags: bkuhn, karen, numbering, agpl, trademarks, oscon

---

July 7, 2009

Bradley and Karen discuss the community debate regarding C# and Mono, and its inclusion in GNU/Linux distributions.

Running time: 00:37:23.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:30)

• Karen pointed out that some of the recent arguments about C# started due to RMS' statements on the matter. Others have also blogged. (04:24)
• Bradley mentioned the launch of the DotGNU project (04:30), which included Portable.NET (05:04)
• Bradley mentioned that C# descends from J++ work inside Microsoft, which became a point of contention between Sun and Microsoft. (06:50)
• Bradley mentioned his blog post that has the same topic as this podcast. (11:17)
• Meanwhile, back at the point is a reference to LUG Radio, which is based on the phrase Meanwhile, back at the ranch. The origins of the latter phrase is likely unclear, although an unsourced Wikipedia article claims it was a phrase frequently used by narrators of black & white American cowboy movies and TV shows of the 1940s and 1950s. (12:18)
• Bjarne Stroustrup (15:09) published his first article on C++ in February 1983 (15:21). His paper on C++ history tells the story of its creation.

Segment 1 (16:05)

• Bradley mentioned John Case, his Theory of Computation professor from graduate school, who always does proofs by “cases” (16:32).
• Bradley and Karen mentioned they used to have the SFLC phone system hooked up to Zoip. (17:39)
• Bradley mentioned that we should End Software Patents.(20:35)
• Bradley mentioned the TomTom case, which he's blogged about and was the topic of Episode 0x0B. (26:15)
• Debian now includes Mono in its base install (28:03), and Ubuntu published a position statement, which Karen read from in the show (26:30). There is an Ubuntu wiki page opposing it. Fedora has included it for some time.
• Bradley mentioned AT&T antitrust divestiture. (30:10)
• Bradley mentioned that very few companies have made an overreaching promise to licenses all their patents in a way acceptable for Free Software. Red Hat is one of them, although their promise isn't perfect, it has some value. (33:34)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, fsf, red hat, patents, gnome

---

June 23, 2009

Karen and Bradley interview Carlo Piana, a lawyer who has worked extensively in the E.U. Microsoft Anti-Trust case.

Running time: 00:44:49.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:31)

• Karen mentioned she owned a thinkgeek shirt that has a visual joke about number base systems. (01:13)
• Bradley misspoke saying that 10 in binary would make it the second show. Of course, it would make it the third show if we numbered in binary, since we start numbering at zero. (01:50)
• Bradley mentioned that the Software Freedom Law Show crowd sources its marketing. (03:30)
• Bradley mentioned that the US Antitrust case against Microsoft, which included both the federal government in the USA, and many State/Commonwealth Attorneys General, many of which settled separately. (05:17)
• This show discussed the EU Antitrust case against Microsoft. (08:30)

Segment 1 (11:18)

• Carlo mentioned that materials about the EU/Microsoft Antitrust case takes up 4-5 square meters of his office. (14:20)
• The EU case started with an ancient complaint by Sun Microsystems. (15:10)
• Carlo mentioned Novell was more dominate historically in Europe than in the USA, and Novell had been more Unix-friendly and compatibility-friendly. As Microsoft became dominant, Sun complained. (15:50)
• The integration of Windows Media Player into Windows was one of the issues raised in the EU case. (16:50)
• EU required Microsoft to provide timely and complete interoperability information so that competitors can create working replacements. This made Samba the natural client for Carlo in this case. (17:56)
• Microsoft challenged the decision, saying that it would give a “free ride” to their competitors, (19:45) and claimed the information wasn't necessary to achieve interoperability, because they could just reverse engineer or implement from standards documents. (20:18) Microsoft sited Samba as an example of how reverse engineering could work. (20:45) Carlo called this a lame excuse. (21:10)
• Carlo said that the EU entirely rejected Microsoft's excuses. (22:46)
• With the help of SFLC, Carlo was able to negotiate licensing conditions that were GPL-compatible. This was necessary because EU allowed RAND licensing of the protocol information, which is often problematic for GPL-compatibility (which typically requires RF licensing). (25:55)
• The compromise required that USD$10,000 be paid by the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation, and after that GPL-compatible licensing for the protocol information was available generally to Samba and the entire community. (26:3)
• Unfortunately, patent claims held by Microsoft are outside of the agreement. Carlo continues to make efforts on this. (27:23)
• Carlo is also working on the OOXML issue (31:10), which Carlo says is clearly an antitrust violation. (33:30)
• In the EU third parties interested can be heard by the Commission early in the process. (34:20)
• Carlo mentioned that the participation and testimony of the Samba team, in particular Jeremy Allison and Andrew Tridgell, was central to make a convincing case to the EU court. (36:25)

Segment 2 (39:29)

• Bradley believes that the most important people in the Free Software world are doing things that no one else is willing to do. (39:40)
• Karen pointed out that the international nature of Free Software means that the success in the EU helps developers around the world. (42:30)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, numbering, microsoft, anti-trust

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June 15, 2009

Karen and Bradley discuss the SFLC's amicus brief in the Jacobsen v. Katzer with their colleague, Aaron Williamson.

Running time: 00:19:01.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:27)

• Bradley referred to the two different types of Latin pronunciation, which he learned in school as: Classic and Church. (01:33)
• Karen explains what an amicus brief is. (01:47)
• Aaron explained that the earlier court ruling that was a success for Free Software. (03:38)
• An injunction in this context is a ruling from a court that the violator of the license must stop their activity that infringes the copyright. (05:46)
• Karen explained why Free Software licenses are interpreted as copyright licenses rather than contracts, and why that is advantageous. (06:15)
• Aaron explained why preliminary injunctions are a particular important remedy for Free Software developers. (07:00)
• Karen mentioned we would have a direct link to our brief in the show notes, which is there and in the summary as well. (10:45)
• Bradley mentioned his work regarding the Artistic-1.0 license (which is detailed in a blog post). (11:30, 13:30)
• Each court has a different admission process. (14:27)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, copyrights, aaronw, jacobsen

---

June 9, 2009

In this episode, Karen and Bradley take questions that listeners have emailed and dented to them over the past few months.

Running time: 00:46:01.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:31)

• Bradley referred to David Letterman's old Viewer Mail Theme. The Letterman FAQ has lyrics to a Viewer Mail Song, but it's not the one that Bradley remembers. Bradley remembers one that Dave called a “nee-na-nee-nee” song that had only the words It's Viewer Mail Time repeated over and over. It was probably from the late 1980s on the old NBC show.
• Bradley mentioned that his old FSF speeches talk about his time as a proprietary software developer and why he vowed never to do it again. (08:49)
• Bradley mentioned that he and Eric (one of the listeners who sent in a question) are fans of the show, Pushing Daisies. (09:40)
• Bradley mentioned that the Nautilus was originally written by a company called Eazel that failed during the dot.com era. (17:04)

Segment 1 (24:22)

• Bradley said their last segment was like the Argument Monty Python Sketch. Karen says that it isn't. (24:30)
• Karen mentions that SFLC's Compliance Guide talks in details about how to do source provisions under GPLv2 and GPLv3. (27:32)
• Bradley's favorite license is the Affero GPL. (28:26)
• Christian asked about the Creative Commons licenses. (33:00)
• At 35:44, you can hear the beginnings of people making coffee in the kitchen that is mentioned at the end of the show.

Tags: bkuhn, karen, questions

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May 26, 2009

Bradley and Karen interview John Sullivan, Manager of Operations at the Free Software Foundation about their various advocacy campaigns.

Running time: 00:35:54.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:32)

• The FSF and Cisco settled their lawsuit, for which SFLC represented FSF. (01:19)
• Karen has participated for the last two years on the “Law of Software Contracts” ALI draft, which was adopted by the ALI this week. (03:20)

Segment 1 (05:51)

• We previously had as a guest Brett Smith of the FSF (on 0x02). (05:59)
• John Sullivan works on the campaigns as the Manager of Operations. (06:11)
• John listed various campaigns that FSF has done since the GPLv3 process:
• Defective by Design. (07:05)
• Play Ogg. (07:14)
• Badvista. (07:30)
• Libre Planet (07:56), which Karen noted was also a conference. (08:55)
• We discussed some of the parodies of the iPod commercials that were part of the Defective by Design Campaign. (12:45)
• The FSF helps support the RIAA expert Witness Fund. (15:20)
• We discussed John's essay, War on Sharing: Why the FSF Cares About RIAA Lawsuits. (16:40)
• We discussed issues where individuals don't understand that copying of some things is permitted. For example, this teacher took away GNU/Linux disks from a student, assuming distribution was prohibited.
• Karen noted a few legal points: works are covered by copyright for a limited period of time, and then fall into the “public domain”. (21:00) There is also a concept of “fair use” of works still under copyright. Further, the DMCA provides for criminal penalties if you circumvent technological anti-copying measures. (22:09)
• FSF filed a brief (PDF) in the SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum case. (25:51)
• The RIAA directly attacked and complained about the FSF brief, which is a rare occurrence. (27:30)
• FSF is hiring a campaigns manager and is looking for applications. (30:04)
• John encouraged people to look at the LibrePlanet Wiki. (30:33)

Segment 2 (31:07)

• Karen does volunteer work to help QuestionCopyright.org. (32:07)
• Karen participated in the EFF's Bootcamp, at which Corynne McSherry gave a speech on fair use. The EFF publishes materials specifically about fair use. (33:40)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, fsf, John Sullivan

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May 12, 2009

Bradley and Karen interview the Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation, Stormy Peters.

Running time: 00:35:22.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:29)

• Karen mentioned the Delta Delta Delta Saturday Night Live skit, when referring to the show number, 0x0D. (00:36)
• Bradley referred to his confusion two episodes ago about mentioning Nehru jackets (00:57). Bradley meant to say “satin baseball jacket”, to refer to the Dead Kennedys' song MTV Get Off The Air. (01:05), but reference to Producer Dan made him think of music and the Beatles first, for various reasons. (Producer Dan's opinions on the Beatles still pending.)
• Bradley mentioned that the only way to talk about music with Free Software is to talk about the Free Software Song, which wouldn't be a good idea. (02:20)
• Bradley mentioned we hadn't previously had SFLC's clients as guests on the show, but Bradley forgot that on the third show, 0x02, Brett Smith of the Free Software Foundation was the guest. (02:50)
• This week's guest is Stormy Peters, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation can be found as storming on identi.ca. (03:35)

Segment 1 (05:00)

• Stormy discussed her blog post that covers 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) forms of non-profit structures. (04:22, 06:02)
• The Linux Foundation is an example of a 501(c)(6) trade association. (07:20)
• We discussed the GNOME Foundation Advisory Board (10:11)
• Karen (and Stormy) mentioned the FSF Membership program. (11:48)
• Stormy mentioned the Friends of GNOME program, that allows individuals to support the GNOME Foundation and its work. (12:37)
• Bradley encouraged everyone to give US$200/year to their favorite FLOSS-related non-profits. (13:18) The FLOSS Foundations Group maintains a directory of FLOSS-related non-profits. (13:46)
• Stormy noted that many for-profit companies have lists of non-profits you can donate to through charitable giving. Bradley didn't get a chance to note during the show that you can often have organizations added to these lists by requesting through the HR department. (15:00)
• Karen mentioned that 501(c)(3) non-profits must meet the public support test. (16:44)
• Stormy mentioned that GNOME could use help on the Usability List and the Marketing list (23:50).
• Stormy mentioned that GUADEC is a major annual conference for GNOME, and this year it will be co-located with KDE's annual conference, Akademy. (26:20)

Segment 2 (29:29)

• Bradley could find no easy online references to the old arguments about KDE being six months ahead of GNOME. He is somewhat relieved this is the case. (30:24)
• Bradley mentioned the Travelocity gnome. (32:10)
• Bradley mentioned that a gnome is featured in the 2001 film, Amélie, being photographed around the world (32:30)
• Bradley mentioned that Free Software author Loïc Dachary does the same thing with a duck.

Tags: bkuhn, karen, Stormy Peters, non-profits, gnome

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April 28, 2009

Karen and Bradley discuss the intersections of software patents with FLOSS licenses. They give a general overview of how patents generally interact with FLOSS, and then discuss the patent provisions of specific FLOSS licenses.

Running time: 00:46:50.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:35)

• Bradley suggests that more knowledgeable listeners might want to skip the first segment. (02:22)
• RMS rightly dislikes the term “intellectual property”. He's written about it often. (02:58)
• Karen noted that the USPTO uses term property to describe patents, which Bradley points out isn't actually accurate. (03:10)
• RMS didn't invent, although he did popularize the phrase , “perpetual copyright on the installment plan”. (05:08)
• The USPTO website confirms that the term limits on patents are 20 years. (05:25)
• Bradley mentioned that RSA Data Security, Inc. liberated the RSA a patent a few weeks before it expired. (05:40)
• Bradley and Karen explained what patent trolls are. (08:50)
• The patent section of SFLC's legal guide explains the interactions of FLOSS with the patent system, including covering issues such as what a patent is and what willful infringement is. (10:36)
• Bradley mentioned that Jeremy Allison gave an award reading FATtest Patent Troll to Sam Ramji at the Linux Collaboration Summit, although the only URL we could find documenting this is a identica statement by Bradley himself. (14:25)

Segment 1 (15:08)

• Bradley noted that GPL is a copyright license. This is discussed in detail in the Copyright section of SFLC's legal guide. (16:03)
• GPLv2§6 and GPLv2§7 are the two sections that might interact with patent issues, particularly §7. (20:30)
• Our colleague, Dan Ravicher, has often spoken about the implied patent license GPLv2 grants, including in seminars run by the FSF itself. (21:20)
• Bradley attempted to concisely explain the patent provisions of GPLv3 (mostly in §11). (27:20)
• Bradley mentioned the discussions in the GPLv3 Drafting committees, such as Committee B and Committee C (29:53).
• Ultimately, Bradley took 8 minutes exactly, not counting Karen's 28 second interruption. That's pretty concise, he thinks.
• GPLv3§12 is nearly identical to GPLv2§7. (37:18)

Segment 2 (38:20)

• Bradley explained the patent provisions of the Apache 2.0 license.
• Bradley and Karen discussed SFLC's work against the Blackboard patent. There were news items on SFLC's site when the reexam was filed and when the USPTO ordered the reexam. (42:05)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, sflc, gplv3, patents

---

April 14, 2009

Bradley and Karen discuss the settlement of the Microsoft/TomTom law suit and the implications for the software freedom community.

Running time: 00:34:36.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:29)

• Bradley and Karen were in San Francisco attending the Linux Foundation's Collaboration Summit (00:46)
• “Producer Dan” is Dan Lynch of half baked media. (01:10)
• Bradley mentioned Nehru jackets, notably worn by Ricardo Montalbán as Khan in Star Trek. (01:23)
• On 30 March 2009, Microsoft and TomTom settled their patent dispute. (2:30)
• Bradley mentioned two articles on 29 December 2008 and on 29 January 2009 in SD Times where he and Sam Ramji debated Microsoft's policies toward the FLOSS community. (04:20)
• Karen and Bradley talk about Microsoft's historic patent threats against Linux. Bradley refers to Microsoft's assertions just 16 months before its aggression with TomTom. (4:29)
• Bradley mentions that many agree that Microsoft's FAT file patent should not be considered a valid patent. (6:30)
• Karen discusses periodic filings required by the U.S. securities laws and thresholds of materiality for information to be included in those filings. (12:34)
• Bradley mentioned Section 7 of GPLv2. (14:20)

Segment 1 (17:53)

• Karen discusses the Edgar system, which has since been succeeded by IDEA. The filings that Karen mentions of Novell's agreements with Microsoft (with confidential treatment) are available here and here. (21:40)
• Bradley explained the date in Section 11 of GPLv3 that puts companies on notice that side patent deals after that date would violate GPLv3. (23:18)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, gplv3, patents

---

March 31, 2009

This episode is primarily composed of a recorded speech that Bradley made on complying with the GPL. An introduction and wrap-up segment with Bradley and Karen is included.

Note: The audio available for this podcast between 06:06 and 10:45 US/Eastern on 31 March 2009 had a mono/stereo issue. That has been corrected. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Running time: 00:56:26.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:29)

• Bradley mentioned being a member of ΥΠΕ (aka UPE), the Computer Science Honors Society, and that their year of founding appears on the seal in binary. Bradley was correct about this, but said the wrong year during the show. The year is actually 1967, which is 11110101111. (01:30)
• The Mayan numbering system was actually base 20, which is close enough to 10 that Bradley's point probably isn't valid, and he awaits for the 2, 8 or 16 base culture to be founded. (02:38)
• Bradley mentioned using the NATO alphabet to read off hexadecimal numbers. (05:53)

Segment 1 (06:53)

You can follow along with the slides during this segment.

To follow along with the slides, note the time indices at the end of each bullet point. When the time on the podcast reaches the index listed at the end of a given bullet point, it is time to switch to the next bullet point (with space). The slides should work in any Javascript-enabled browser.

Segment 2 (52:58)

The Compliance Guide has since been made available since the talk was recorded. (53:56).

Tags: bkuhn, karen, sflc, gplv3, compliance

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March 17, 2009

In this episode of the Software Freedom Law Show, Karen and Bradley interview Karen F. Copenhaver of the Linux Foundation and Choate, Hall, & Stewart, LLP, and also answer a listener's question.

Running time: 00:42:51.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:31)

• Karen (Sandler) just returned from speaking at the Bossa Conference 2009. (00:50)
• Bradley just returned from the Free Software Poker Conference. (01:13)
• Outside of his work for the Conservancy and the SFLC, Bradley also contributes to the Pokersource project. (01:27)
• Karen (Sandler) mentioned a type of non-profit organization called trade associations, aka 501(c)(6)'s. (02:50)
• Karen (Copenhaver) works for the Linux Foundation. (03:52)

Segment 1 (04:09)

• Karen (Copenhaver) noted that she thinks of Richard Fontana as a national treasure. Fontana was previously a guest (on episode 0x04). (09:40)
• Karen (Copenhaver) mentioned that conversations among lawyers about Free Software licensing issues are very important. Listeners may be interested to know about open-bar, which is a mailing list for exactly that. (15:26)
• Karen (Copenhaver) pointed out that Scott Peterson is an invaluable resource to other lawyers. Scott was previously a guest (on episode 0x01). (16:17)
• Karen (Copenhaver) pointed out that she isn't the attorney for any kernel developers or the member companies of the Linux Foundation, and that her primary role is for education on legal issues related to the kernel named Linux. (17:32)
• Both Karens discussed the differences between trade associations (aka 501(c)(6)'s), and 501(c)(3) charitable organizations. The latter is more common in the FLOSS world, but Linux Foundation is the former. Stormy Peters wrote an excellent blog post on the differences between the two. (18:50)
• Karen (Copenhaver) pointed out that The Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) was the predecessor organization to the Linux Foundation. (Linux Foundation was formed by the merger the ODSL and the Free Standards Group (FSG) in early 2007.) (20:40)
• Some of the key kernel developers, such as Andrew Morton, Linus Torvalds, and Ted T'so work for the Linux Foundation. (21:20)
• Karen (Copenhaver) said that the Linux Foundation has a small number of employees, although at ten, it is actually about the same size, or, in most cases, bigger more than most non-profits in the FLOSS space. She was likely primarily comparing the size of the Linux Foundation to its member companies. (22:25)
• Jim Zemlin is the CEO of the Linux Foundation. (24:54)
• The Linux Foundation has planned a number of events for 2009. (31:15)

Segment 2 (34:06)

• The FSF FAQ as a pretty good definition of license Compatibility. (37:00)
• The the license compatibility matrix is also in the GPL FAQ. The matrix was written by Brett Smith, who was a guest on Episode 0x02.(38:19)
• The FSF License List indicates whether or not each license is compatible with the GPL. (40:00)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, linux foundation, Karen Copenhaver, license compatibility

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March 3, 2009

Bradley and Karen discuss the issues and considerations for a FLOSS project selecting a license.

Running time: 00:40:30.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:25)

• Bradley mentioned license proliferation. (02:50)
• Karen mentioned the FSF License List. (04:40)
• Although they are saying it too fast, Bradley and Karen are saying the word “Affero”, referring to the Affero GPL. (06:50)
• Bradley and Karen discussed weak copyleft, such as the Lesser GPL. (16:00)
• Bradley mentioned thisSoftware Freedom Law Show: blog post of his where he says most developers have traditionally seen a licensing decision as something you think about once and never revisit!. (22:35)
• Karen mentioned the SFLC Primer.
• Bradley mentioned checking if a license is on the FSF License List, on the OSI License List and if it's DFSG-Free before using it. (27:21)

Segment 1 (28:15)

Karen and Bradley debate various issues about license selection.

Tags: agpl, patents, trademarks, copyrights, bkuhn, karen, fsf, gplv3

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February 17, 2009

In this episode of the Software Freedom Law Show, Bradley and Karen interview Van Lindberg of the law firm, Haynes and Boone. The discussion centers around explaining the difference between copyrights, patents and trademarks to Free Software developers.

Running time: 00:40:18.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:28)

• Unlike our previous guests Scott and Richard, Van is an external, or outside counsel, who are lawyers hired by the company or organization that advise it from the outside. External lawyers are often employees of law firms, as Van is. (02:07)

Segment 1 (03:47)

Interview with Van Lindberg.

• Van is an associate at a law firm called Haynes and Boone (04:15).
• The term we don't like that Bradley keeps referring to is “intellectual property”, which has often been criticized by people in the Software Freedom world, initially in the writings of Richard Stallman. (12:29)
• Karen asked if Van is a patent lawyer. “Patent lawyers” are lawyers who are the member of the bar in some state, and have also taken a special exam to allow them to practice before the United States Patent Office. “Patent agents” are non-lawyers who have taken the same exam and can also practice before the United States Patent Office. Practicing before the patent office is unique in the USA, as you can do so without going to law school and passing a state-level bar exam. (13:30)
• Van's book is Intellectual Property and Open Source, published by O'Reilly. (36:50)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, lindberg, patents, copyrights, trademarks

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February 3, 2009

In this episode, Karen and Bradley discuss the issue of licensing exceptions: texts written that give additional permissions beyond the standard permissions that come automatically with existing FLOSS licenses.

Running time: 00:39:57.

Show Notes

Segment 0 (00:45)

• Bradley mentioned the FSF approved license list and the OSI approved license list. (02:23)
• Bradley mentioned the concept of license proliferation, and explained how the issue of exceptions is orthogonal to it. (03:08)
• Bradley mentioned the horribleness of Visual Basic. (04:47)
• The Wikipedia entry on the GPL linking exception is not completely accurate, but it's a pretty good introduction.
• Bradley and Karen discussed in detail Section 7 of GPLv3, which discusses the “Additional Permissions” possibilities (16:15)
• Bradley compared the possibility of representing any Free Software licenses as GPLv3 plus additional permissions to the representing all programs as Turing machines or with Gödel numbering. (18:30)
• Bradley mentioned the LGPLv3. (22:35, 37:37)

Segment 1 (23:44)

• SFLC's announcement for the GCC Runtime Library Exception; Bradley mentioned his blog post about it. (24:15)
• Bradley spoke about the intermediate representation used by the compiler. (27:34)
• The text of the GCC Runtime Library Exception, and the FAQ. (32:45)

Tags: bkuhn, karen, gplv3, exceptions