Free as in Freedom
by Free as in Freedom
A bi-weekly discussion of legal, policy, and other issues in the open source and software freedom community (including occasional interviews) from Brooklyn, New York, USA. Presented by Karen Sandler and Bradley M. Kuhn.
Episodes
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FOSSY 2023
Come to FOSSY 2023! Show Notes: FOSSY 2023 will happen next week in Portland, OR, USA. Send feedback and comments on the cast to . You can keep in touch with Free as in Freedom on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by following Conservancy on identi.ca and and Twitter....
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0x6C: Even More DMCA Exemption Requests!
Karen and Bradley discuss two other DMCA exemptions filed by Software Freedom Conservancy during the 2020/2021 Triennial Rulemaking Process at the copyright office: one for wireless router firmwares and one for privacy research. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:39) Supporters of Conservancy can join…
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0x6B: GPL Enforcement Investigation DMCA Exemption Request
Software Freedom Conservancy filed multiple exemptions in the USA Copyright Office Triennial Rulemaking Process under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). In this episode, Karen and Bradley explore the details of Conservancy's filing to request permission to circumvent technological...
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0x6A: Live Show from SeaGL 2019
The first live podcast of Free as in Freedom, hosted at SeaGL 2019 in November 2019. Hear questions from the studio audience and answers from Bradley and Karen. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:38) Producer Dan speaks on mic to introduce that this is a live show. Segment 1 (01:17) This is a live show…
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0x69: Microsoft's E-Book Platform and Other DRM Disasters
Karen and Bradley discuss the end to Microsoft's e-book platform and generally the dangers and disasters that Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) cause for software users and developers. Show Notes: Karen and Bradley discuss the end to Microsoft's e-book platform and generally the dangers and...
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0x68: Molly De Blanc at CopyleftConf 2019
Bradley and Karen enjoy and discuss Molly De Blanc's keynote at the first annual CopyleftConf, entitled The Margins of Software Freedom, followed by an exclusive interview with Molly! Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:37) Bradley mentioned (without the title) the film, When a Stranger Calls, which is...
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0x67: Analysis of Two Backports of GPLv3 Termination Provisions to GPLv2
Bradley and Karen discuss two additional permissions that can be used to “backport” the GPLv3 Termination provisions to GPLv2 — the Kernel Enforcement Statement Additional Permission, and the Red Hat Cooperation Commitment. A blog post on Conservancy's site summarizes the discussion on this show....
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0x66: The End of Hellwig vs. VMware
Bradley and Karen discuss the details of the completion of the lawsuit (which Conservancy supported) between Christoph Hellwig and VMware in Germany. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:37) Bradley mentioned the episode of Red Dwarf, White Hole, where the characters are speaking too slowly or two quickly…
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0x65: Linux Foundation's Community Bridge
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. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:36) Conservancy helped Free Software Foundation and...
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0x64: Our Producer Dan Lynch Interviewed at Copyleft Conf 2019
Bradley and Karen interview their own producer, Dan Lynch, on site at Copyleft Conf 2019. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:46) Karen now teaches teaches a course at Columbia University. (03:40) In addition to being the producer of Free as in Freedom, Dan Lynch was the host of Rat Hole Radio, the co-host...
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0x63: Can Anyone Live in Full Software Freedom Today? (Part IV)
In their final installment regarding their joint keynote at FOSDEM 2019, entitled: Can Anyone Live in Full Software Freedom Today?: Confessions of Activists Who Try But Fail to Avoid Proprietary Software, you listeners can hear the final product — a recording of the actual FOSDEM keynote....
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0x62: Can Anyone Live in Full Software Freedom Today? (Part III)
Bradley and Karen have the last pre-talk installment of discussing the preparation for their joint keynote at FOSDEM 2019, entitled: Can Anyone Live in Full Software Freedom Today?: Confessions of Activists Who Try But Fail to Avoid Proprietary Software. This episode is the third of three…
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0x61: Can Anyone Live in Full Software Freedom Today? (Part II)
Bradley and Karen continue the process of preparing their joint keynote at FOSDEM 2019, entitled: Can Anyone Live in Full Software Freedom Today?: Confessions of Activists Who Try But Fail to Avoid Proprietary Software. This episode is the second of three episodes where Bradley and Karen record...
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0x60: Can Anyone Live in Full Software Freedom Today? (Part I)
Bradley and Karen pull back the curtain and begin the process of preparing their joint keynote at FOSDEM 2019, entitled: Can Anyone Live in Full Software Freedom Today?: Confessions of Activists Who Try But Fail to Avoid Proprietary Software. This episode is the first of multiple episodes where...
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0x5F: Was 2018 the Year of Non-FOSS Licensing?
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. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:36) Bradley and Karen discuss ideas for what to do with the oggcast going forward. Segment…
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0x5E: Conservancy's ContractPatch Initiative
Bradley and Karen discuss Conservancy's ContractPatch Initiative that will help Free Software developers negotiate their agreements with employers. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:38) Software Freedom Conservancy has two blog posts and a mailing list to discuss the Contract Patch initiative (02:40)....
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0x5D: Conference Report, 1st Half of 2016
Bradley and Karen discuss Conservancy's conference trips and presentations during the first half of 2016. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:38) Bradley attended and spoke at FOSDEM 2016 and LinuxConf Australia 2016 (03:10) Bradley and Karen co-coordinated the FOSDEM 2016 Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom...
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0x5C: Basic FLOSS Concepts: Licensing 101
Bradley and Karen give a basic introduction of copyright licensing of Open Source and Free Software. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:35) Bradley mentioned the phrase “fixed in a tangible medium” which appears in the USA copyright law. (03:10) Bradley mentioned the Sherman Antitrust act. (04:05) Bradley...
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0x59: Audio Killed the Video Star
Bradley and Karen discuss the plan for restarting Free as in Freedom and plans for episodes to come. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:36) Bradley said in the before time — in the long long ago, which is a reference to the South Park parody of the ST:TOS episode, Miri (01:30) Bradley mentioned when Karen...
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0x58: Debian Copyright Aggregation
Bradley and Karen discuss Conservancy's Debian Copyright Aggregation project. (Note: While it was released just after DebConf16, this episode was recorded well before DebConf16; the discussions about DebConf refer to DebConf15.) Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:38) Note: While it was released just after...
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0x57: Support Conservancy Now!
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! Show Notes: Bradley mentioned Cygnus Solutions, ultimately acquired by Red Hat, which was an early...
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0x56: … & We're Back!
Bradley and Karen discuss the VMware lawsuit that Software Freedom Conservancy is funding. Show Notes: Bradley and Karen discuss the lawsuit that Christoph Hellwig filed. (07:37) Karen mentioned her LibrePlanet keynote about the VMware lawsuit. (21:30) Bradley's talk at LinuxConf Australia 2015,...
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0x55: Nick Coghlan at LCA 2015
Bradley and Karen interview Nick Coghlan, who works onn development and test infrastructure for Red Hat and is heavily involved with the Python community. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:35) Bradley and Karen interviewed Nick Coghlan who works for Red Hat and contributes to various Open Source and...
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0x54: Carol Smith at LCA 2015
Bradley and Karen interview Carol Smith, Programs and Open Source Community Manager of Google Summer of Code about the program and its policies and procedures. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:35) Bradley encourages those who attend FOSDEM 2015 to attend sign up to attend the Supporter Night Event on...
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0x53: Can Plagiarism Happen Under Copyleft?
Bradley and Karen discuss what plagiarism is (or isn't) and how it interacts with copyleft licenses. 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...
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0x52: Legal Issues from a Radical Community Angle
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. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:35) Karen and Bradley introduce the talk. Segment 1 (00:02:38) Stefano...
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0x51: Why Licenses Requiring Use of Trademarks are Non-Free
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. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:34) You can donate now to send Producer Dan Lynch to a Free Software conference. Donations will...
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0x5B: Interview with RMS on GNU's 30th Anniversary
Karen and Bradley interview Richard M. Stallman on the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the GNU Project. Note: Episode 0x5B was released out of sequence, but they are in the order of release date on faif.us (rather than numerical order by episode number). Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:34) Note:...
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0x50: Big Announcements & Evans' FOSDEM 2014 Talk
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. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:36) Conservancy file a DMCA petition...
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0x5A: Gamergate's Free Software Connection
Note: Episode 0x5A was released out of sequence, but they are in the order of release date on faif.us (rather than numerical order). Karen and Bradley discuss connections between the so-called “Gamergate” controversy and how it relates to the Free Software community and a few obvious legal…
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0x4F: Linus Torvalds' Comments at DebConf 2014
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. 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…
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0x4E: IRS Refusal Redux
Bradley and Karen discuss the key differences between 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(6) organizations in the USA, and discuss recent refusals by the IRS to grant such statuses to Open Source and Free Software orgs. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:34) Bradley mentioned the 501(c)(3) vs. 501(c)(6) difference came…
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0x4D: 2013 Interview: Poettering & Day on Sandboxed GNOME Applications
Karen Sandler interviews Lennart Poettering and Alan Day during the GNOME Asia Summit 2013. Bradley and Karen comment on this interview. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:38) Bradley and Karen introduce Karen's interview with Lennart Poettering and Alan Day. Segment 1 (02:06) Karen interviews Lennart...
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0x4C: Copyleft vs permissive vs CLAs
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. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:38) Bradley and Karen introduce Simo's talk. Segment 1 (00:03:02) The slides from…
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0x4B: CLA Panel Discussion
Bradley and Karen host a panel discussion on CLAs with Van Lindberg and Richard Fontana. 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)…
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0x4A: See LA?
Bradley and Karen discuss Contributor Licensing Agreements, which pulls material from Bradley's blog posts on the subject. 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...
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0x49: Why Free Software Phone Doesn't Exist
Bradley and Karen discuss the talk, Why the free software phone doesn't exist by Aaron Williamson given at FOSDEM 2013 on Sunday 3 February 2013. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:37) Bradley and Karen introduce the talk. Segment 1 (04:06) Aaron's slides area available. Segment 2 (56:41) Bradley…
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0x48: copyleft-next
Bradley and Karen discuss the talk, copyleft-next: an Introduction by Richard Fontana given at FOSDEM 2013 on Sunday 3 February 2013. 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…
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0x47: Why Are You a Software Freedom Zealot?
Bradley and Karen discuss why software freedom as a political, social and moral issue is important to each of them personally. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:36) Bradley mentioned that he used to frequently give talks on why software freedom is important to him. There are available on FSF's…
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0x46: O'Sullivan's Legally Cementing Licences in Legislation
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. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:37) Bradley mentioned the Planet money t-shirt story (03:04) Bradley...
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0x45: I'm Board
Bradley and Karen discuss the details, what to worry about, and what the usual duties are when serving on a Board of Directors for a USA non-profit. The discussion is primarily about 501(c)(3) organizations, but at the end they spend some time discussing 501(c)(6) organizations as well. Show…
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0x44: Oracle v. Google Federal Appeals Court Decision
Bradley and Karen explain why they've been gone for so long, and then discuss the recent Oracle v. Google Federal Appeals Court Decision. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:31) Karen is now Executive Director of Conservancy and Bradley is President and Distinguished Technologist. (03:01) Bradley will…
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0x43: State of the GNUnion
Karen and Bradley listen to and discuss John Sullivan's talk from FOSDEM 2013, entitled State of the GNUnion. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:33) Karen and Bradley introduce the talk. Segment 1 (00:01:58) The slides for John's talk are available, and the source of those slides is available too....
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0x42: libVLC LGPL Relicensing
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. 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…
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Episode 0x41: Interview with Jim Zemlin at OSCON 2013
Bradley and Karen interview Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the The Linux Foundation. Show Notes: Bradley and Karen interview Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the The Linux Foundation. Segment 0 (00:00:33) Bradley and Karen introduce the interview. Segment 1 (00:03:03) Bradley and Karen...
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Episode 0x40: Alison Chaiken on Free Software in Cars
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. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:38) Bradley and Karen introduce the interview....
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Episode 0x3F: FOSDEM 2013 - AGPLv3 Panel Discussion
Karen and Bradley listen to and discuss The panel discussion on the GNU Affero General Public License from FOSDEM 2013. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:38) Bradley asked for donations again to Conservancy's NPO accounting software campaign and Karen asked for donations to GNOME's Privacy Campaign....
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0x3E: Mozilla - Licensing in the Trenches
Karen and Bradley listen to and discuss Gervase Markham's talk from FOSDEM 2013, entitled Mozilla: Licensing In The Trenches. 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...
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0x3D: Conference Behavior Redux
Karen and Bradley discuss the sexist comment issue that occurred a few months ago at PyCon USA 2013. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:00:34) Bradley and Karen previously discussed conference behavior back in Episode 0x04. Bradley had blogged a few years ago about the issues of sexism through the…
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0x3C: FOSDEM 2013: How to Share a Trademark
Karen and Bradley listen to and discuss Pamela Chestek's talk from FOSDEM 2013, entitled How to Share a Trademark. 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…
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About this show
A bi-weekly discussion of legal, policy, and other issues in the open source and software freedom community (including occasional interviews) from Brooklyn, New York, USA. Presented by Karen Sandler and Bradley M. Kuhn.
Hosted by
Free as in Freedom
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