Bradley and Karen
have an introductory discussion on how non-profit governance interacts
with Free Software projects and what issues are important for
developers who want their project to have a non-profit existence.
Bradley and Karen tend to agree that non-profit settings are better
places to foster and help Free Software development. (03:40)
Bradley mentioned that Roland McGrath wrote GNU C
Library (and other GNU programs) while working as an employee at the FSF, and many of those programs are now
often maintained by Red Hat (or other company's) developers, under the
auspices of the GNU project, as overseen by the FSF. (04:50)
Corporate form and organization questions should be secondary to
project leadership ones. (09:50)
One of the most important things is to have an organization in a
place where people are willing to do the work to keep the organization
going. (20:10)
Enthusiasm to keep the organization running is the most important
resource for running the organization. (22:26)
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)
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.
Bradley and Karen announced that the Software Freedom Law
Show is over. Karen and Bradley announced a new show,
called Free as in Freedom, that is a joint effort by Karen (still at the SFLC) and Bradley (no longer at SFLC).
Running time: 00:32:32.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:28)
Bradley mentioned OsamaK is not
happy at Bradley and Karen for not having a new oggcast for a month. (00:45)
Conservancy helps software freedom projects focus on development, and
aggregate projects into one place. (06:20)
Conservancy will be expanding its service plan now that Bradley is
full time. (06:46)
Conservancy will try do copyright assignment in a community-focused
way, only if the developers want it. Conservancy will also do much more
GPL enforcement than it has previously. (07:20)
Bradley mentions that once you start doing something in the software
freedom world, it's hard to stop once people start to rely on your
work. (12:30)
Conservancy handles a lot of “boring” but essential stuff
for developers to continue in their project. (14:20)
Bradley mentioned that his early volunteer work at FSF was also doing
the boring stuff, and indeed a lot of his work has been willing to do the
boring stuff (15:30)
Karen mentions that no one fights over the work that just needs to
get done. (16:30)
Bradley discussed the fact that for-profit corporate control of
projects is dangerous, and one of the things Conservancy and similar
non-profits offers is an opportunity to have a non-profit with the public
interest at heart in the center of their community. (17:39)
Karen points out that for-profit and non-profit go hand-in-hand. But,
Bradley argues that steward of a FLOSS project should always be a
non-profit. Karen agrees. (19:00-19:30)
Bradley doesn't really believe that there are projects that would
“never happen” without a for-profit company starting it.
Karen disagrees.
The Software Freedom Law Show is over
This is the last episode of the Software Freedom
Law Show. (21:10)
Karen will make sure that the SFLC RSS feeds remain valid. Bradley
points out that there are new RSS feeds for both the mp3 version and the ogg version of the new show,
Free as in Freedom (21:33,
22:41)
The new show is basically just the Karen and Bradley show, now named
Free as in Freedom, hosted on faif.us. (23:43)
Bradley mentioned that everywhere he's ever worked, he always had root
on most of the boxes. He doesn't know what it's like to work somewhere
and not have root. (27:50)
Karen got in trouble at her first law firm job for installing software
on computers. (28:21)
Karen and Bradley discuss the enforcement activities of the Software Freedom Conservancy, recent conferences and medical devices.
Running time: 35:21.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:33)
Bradley is President of the Software Freedom Conservancy, and Karen is one of the Conservancy's pro bono lawyers. Karen is also an officer of the Conservancy, and Bradley is a director of the FSF. Got that?(03:17)
Thanks for sending us your ideas!(06:22)
The SFLC is not the EFF, despite what slashdot says.(09:18)
Karen, Bradley and Aaron talk about SFLC's motion for default judgment against Westinghouse Digital Electronics, a defendant in the ongoing lawsuit concerning GPL violations of BusyBox.
Running time: 38:15.
Show Notes
Segment 0 (00:33)
Bradley quoted from Act I Scene II of Hamlet, in which he once played Bernardo in a college production. Karen never played Bernardo (01:02)
The Bilski decision once again did not come out this week. The Supreme Court publishes all decisions on its website. The SCOTUS blog provides up to date information about the court schedule, including a live blog on the mornings when decisions are announced.(03:03)
Karen thinks that Aaron and Bradley do not know that the cake is a lie. (03:54)
SFLC filed a motion in the Southern District of New York against Westinghouse Digital Electronics, a defendant in the ongoing lawsuit concerning GPL violations of BusyBox. (05:10)
The original complaint in the ongoing case can be found here. (08:05)
The motion for default judgment or summary judgment can be found here. (09:00)
Karen mentioned Serving Sara, so we provide the obligatory IMDB link. Other sources for how service should be provided would probably be more reliable. (15:30)
Sewer service, as described by Aaron, is invalid service. Or you can use google, but that will mostly teach you about sewers and their maintenance. (18:46)
Bradley and Karen discuss the USA IRS Form
990, which non-profit donors can use to understand and check up on
the activities of charitable organizations in the USA.
Bradley mentioned GuideStar, which is a place you
can find Form 990s at no charge for non-profits in the USA. Bradley
noted that you have to sign up for an account to use their search, but
the 990 downloads are at no charge. (10:15)
Bradley mentioned that the Boost
Project, a member project of Conservancy, has has an annual
conference, the revenue from which appears on Line 2 of the
Conservancy's Form 990. (21:23)
Karen mentioned Form 990 Line 3 is usually large for 501(c)(6)
organizations, since most of their funds come from membership fees
(23:30)
Organizations have to file a form with the State or Commonwealth
where the organization is incorporated. (43:55)
New York has more requirements than many states and
commonwealths. New York organizations often need a limited review or
an audit by an accounting firm.
Conservancy made its New York State
FY 2008CHAR-500 (PDF) available as well (44:32)
The Software Freedom Law Center is proud to announce its new podcast,
The Software Freedom Law Show. Hosted by Bradley
M. Kuhn and Karen Sandler,
this bi-weekly podcast will bring interviews and explanations on legal
issues related to Free, Libre and Open Software Software (FLOSS).
Our first episode introduces the format and the hosts interview each
other so you can get to know them better.
Running time: 00:32:39.
Show Notes
Our first episode introduces the format and the hosts.
Bradley referred to the laws of robotics, to which Asimov added a Zeroth Law in his later books (making the law the first in priority of application, if not first in order of appearance). (00:52)
Bradley is a “Podcast Monitor”, not a “Hall monitor”. (01:30)
Bradley couldn't find a good web page that discussed the full history
of Backspace vs. DEL in Emacs, but
the Emacs Wiki
hints at the controversy. (19:30)
Bradley briefly mentioned
the Xemacs fork. (19:40)
Bradley probably had his dates mixed up of his first GNU/Linux
install. 0.99pl12 came out in early 1993, so he probably
installed SLS
in early 1993 during his sophomore year in college. He found his Xconfig
file from his old laptop with a filedate of 15 December 1993.
(Remember when you had to write Xconfigs by hand and they would break
your monitor if you did it wrong?) (20:44)
Karen mentioned doing a “Choose your own essay” program in
C for Eben when she was law school, based on the idea
of Choose
Your Own Adventure books, which both Karen and Bradley read as
children. (25:43)
Bradley mentioned Eben and Larry
Wall both being influenced
by APL.
Bradley is sure, although it doesn't seem to appear in the transcripts,
that during one of
hisearly State of
the Onion
speeches, Larry joked that he'd use Unicode Perl operators to
reinvent APL. (26:20)
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