Free as in Freedom

Come to FOSSY 2023! Show Notes: FOSSY 2023 will happen next week in Portland, OR, USA. Send feedback and comments on the cast to <[email protected]>. 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. Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums. The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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 this mailing list to hear and see live recordings of every show! Segment 1 (06:30) Conservancy filed a DMCA exemption request for wireless routers, and updated it with their long comment on the issue. NPR's Planet Money had a show that discussed how recycling plastic in the USA was somewhat of a large con game funded by the plastics industry. Both audio a transcript is available. (19:32, 20:44) Segment 2 (29:10) Bradley and Karen discuss the third exemption request that Conservancy filed, for research to find privacy flaws, and updated it with a long comment on the issue. Karen and Bradley noted that individuals can file reply comments before the deadline of Wednesday 10 March 2021 at 23:59 US/Eastern. Note that the “neutral comment” requirement appears to no longer be listed; the 2021-03-10 (47:20) Send feedback and comments on the cast to <[email protected]>. 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. Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums. The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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 restriction measures in order to investigate infringement of other people's copyright, which is a necessary part of investigations of alleged violations of the GPL and other copyleft licenses. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:39) Bradley claims that you'll now love the audcast more than ever (02:51) Conservancy filed many exemptions as part of the currently ongoing triennial DMCA Process. (02:50) Segment 1 (04:22) Everyone in the Free Software community wishes the USA's Digital Millennium Copyright Act didn't exist. (05:24) Bradley is currently doing research going to the year 1790 that shows the foundations of the copyright act, but Karen points out that Bradley isn't a professional copyright historian (yet). He points out he is an amateur copyright historian (05:45) DMCA is the USA's implementation of the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT), but is more a restrictive copyright act than the WCT requires. (06:50) Bradley mentioned that the three videos from the Copyright Office, which are linked to from Conservancy's blog post on the subject that, while they are Copyright Office propaganda, that are helpful to explain the DMCA (10:57): A Legal Overview of § 1201 (PDF slides only). The Triennial Rulemaking Process for §1201 (PDF slides only). Streamlined Petitions for Renewed Exemptions (PDF slides only). Conservancy filed the most exemption requests in the 2020/2021 Rulemaking Process (21:25) Segment 2 (28:07) Conservancy filed an exemption request and a “Long Form” comment in support of it that was labeled “Class 16: Computer Programs &—; Copyright License Investigation” by the Copyright Office (29:00) Bradley mentioned that people can get arrested just for giving talks under the DMCA, referring to Dmitry Sklyarov. Adobe simply called the FBI and got him arrested under DMCA. (38:50) Segment 3 (34:36) If you are a Conservancy Supporter as well as being a FaiFCast listener, you can join this mailing list to receive announcements of live recordings and attend them through Conservancy's Big Blue Button (BBB) server. Send feedback and comments on the cast to <[email protected]>. 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. Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums. The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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 from SeaGL 2019, a community-organized FaiP (02:15) Carol Smith from Microsoft asked about being a charity in the USA under recent tax changes regarding tax deduction and, and asked about Conservancy's annual fundraiser which had completed by the time this show was released. (04:53) Deb took a photo during the show (07:30) A questioner asked about the so-called “ethical but-non-FOSS licenses”. Bradley gave an answer that is supplemented well by this blog post (10:15) and Karen mentioned at CopyleftConf 2020 there was a discussion about this. (15:15) The follow up question was also related to these topics (15:44). Eric Hopper asked about how Conservancy decides when a project joins, and what factors Conservancy considers in projects joining (18:14) A written questioner asked how to handle schools requiring proprietary software as part of their coursework. (22:00) Michael Dexter asked about Karen's teaching at Columbia Law School. (27:25) A written questioner asked about copyleft-next's sunset clause. (29:22) Karen mentioned “Copyleft, All wrongs reversed” as it appeared on n June 1976 on Tiny BASIC, which inspired the term copyleft to mean what it does today. (30:45) Karen spoke about the issues of copyright and trademark regarding Disney, that is supplemented by this blog post. (32:52) Carol Smith asked what Karen and Bradley thought were Conservancy's and/or FOSS' biggest achievements in the last decade. (35:20) Karen mentioned Outreachy was a major success. (37:08) A questioner asked about using the CASE Act to help in GPL enforcement. Bradley discussed how it might ultimately introduce problems similar to arbitration clauses. (41:42) Since the podcast was recorded, the CASE Act has also passed the Senate, but does not seem to have been signed by the President. (47:30) Bradley noted that Mako Hill has pointed out that FOSS has not been involved in lobbying enough. (48:10) A questioner in the audience asked about the Mozilla Corporation structure would allow Mozilla to do lobbying for FOSS. (50:57) Karen explained the Mozilla corporate legal structure (51:35). A questioner in the audience asked about Mako Hill's keynote and how individuals can help further the cause of software freedom. (54:53) Michael Dexter asked if software patents are still as much of a threat as they once were. (1:01:30) Carol asked about the supreme court hearing the Oracle v. Google case (1:09:04) Send feedback and comments on the cast to <[email protected]>. 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. Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums. The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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 disasters that Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) cause for software users and developers. Segment 0 (00:35) Bradley mentioned that Microsoft ended their e-book platform. He said this was “last month” but we ended up releasing this show late, so it was in August 2019 (01:31). Bradley mentioned the analog hole. (09:50) Karen discussed the exception process under DMCA, which Conservancy participated in regarding “Smart” TVs. (12:30) Bradley mentioned this historical burning of the Library of Alexandria as a Roman weapon, comparing it to DRM. (15:07) Bradley talked about how Netflix and Microsoft used Silverlight initially as the method of DRM, and that Microsoft was a leader in the entertainment industry in providing DRM (20:00) Segment 1 (26:31) Bradley and Karen discuss how DRM and other lock-down of devices, including medical devices, are creating problems in society generally. Karen noted that the role of for-profit companies is not to safeguard the public interest. (41:10) Bradley mentioned you can turn off DRM on the Google Play store for your book (as the publisher). (43:04) Send feedback and comments on the cast to <[email protected]>. 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. Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums. The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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 indeed a real movie, not a TV movie, and was from the late 1970s — although Bradley saw it on TV sometime in the 1980s. (02:15) Segment 1 (04:11) A recording of Molly De Blanc's keynote at the first annual (2019) CopyleftConf, entitled entitled The Margins of Software Freedom. Slides for Molly's talk are available on her gitlab account. Segment 2 (20:11) Bradley and Karen talk about the keynote and set up the interview. Segment 3 (23:56) Extended interview with Molly from on site at CopyleftConf 2019! Segment 4 (34:06) Bradley and Karen discuss what ideas Molly's interview got them thinking about. Bradley wrote a blog post about Delta's anti-union marketing. (40:50) Molly De Blanc is now an employee at the GNOME Foundation and President of the Open Source Initiative (52:53) Send feedback and comments on the cast to <[email protected]>. 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. Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums. The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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. Show Notes: Segment 0 (00:35) Bradley mentioned irregardless is not actually a word, but it does appear to be slang, which dates back to 1795! (03:23) The additional permission system was codified as a formal part of GPLv3, but are generally more informal under GPLv2. (05:24) Karen explained what the Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement. (07:49) Karen mentioned that Daleks terminate! (08:51) Segment 1 (13:04) Bradley mentioned the inbound=outbound FOSS licensing contributor assent system (18:15) Segment 2 (26:10) Karen and Bradley discuss the term “non-defensive” and what it means. Bradley mentioned the Twin Peaks lawsuit as a non-hypothetical case where the RHCC would not apply where GPL enforcement was used by Red Hat itself as a retaliation tactic. (29:23) The Kernel Enforcement Statement and the RHCC are available online. Segment 3 (38:40) The next episode of will be an interview with Molly De Blanc and recording of her keynote at CopyleftConf 2019 Send feedback and comments on the cast to <[email protected]>. 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. Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums. The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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 due to time differentials. (01:30) Bradley explained that the Hellwig vs. VMware suit in Germany has concluded. (03:30) German is a civil law legal system. (05:15) Christoph Hellwig announced on his website that he has decided not to appeal. (07:18) Bradley did a technical analysis how much of Christoph's code appeared in the infringing VMware product. (07:50) Till Jaeger was Christoph's lawyer; Till was also the lawyer for Harald Welte's (currently defunct) gpl-violations.org project. (09:04) Segment 1 (09:26) “Trolling” refers to being a non-practicing entity. Patrick McHardy is specifically a practicing entity, since he upstreamed a lot of code in Linux. (09:50) Bradley was thinking of the patent troll, Intellectual Ventures. (10:40) Bradley that the Eastern district of Texas hears many patent cases in the USA. (10:50) Bradley mentioned a This American Life, Episode 411, which discussed patents. Show hosts/producers Laura Sydell and Alex Blumberg visit one of those “empty-but-not” office buildings in the Eastern District of Texas. (11:18) Bradley and Karen wrote about Patrick McHardy's behavior back in July 2016 — Conservancy was the first to talk about it publicly. Bradley sought to prevent the “compliance industrial complex” from using knowledge of Patrick's behavior to unduly scare people. (13:10) Conservancy (with FSF) also published the Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement (15:10) The rest of the Netfilter team, except for Patrick McHardy, endorsed the Principles. (16:30) The VMware suit started 2015-03-05, and began before Patrick McHardy started his problematic behavior. While the VMware suit was working its way through the court, McHardy had filed many inappropriate lawsuits. (18:30) German court decisions are very rarely published, but thanks to hard work by everyone involved, the appeal decision, and the lower Court's decision (the latter of which was also translated into English.) (27:30) Segment 2 (33:01) In the next episode, Karen will discuss the Kernel Enforcement Statement Additional Permission, and the Red Hat “Cooperation Commitment”. (35:40) Send feedback and comments on the cast to <[email protected]>. 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. Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums. The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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 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. Send feedback and comments on the cast to <[email protected]>. 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. Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums. The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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 of Linux Outlaws, and currently co-hosts Hollywood Outlaws. (04:30) Segment 1 (5:19) Dan helps co-organize Oggcamp which is having its tenth-anniversary event on Saturday 19 October 2019. (08:00) Bradley mentioned the phrase from IT Crowd quote: Did you see that ludicrous display last night? (11:08) Dan talked about The Manchester Ship Canal. (13:16) Dan promoted Hollywood Outlaws where he and his co-host Fab talk about Bosch. (23:18) Dan promoted his own podcast about comics called Tales of the Unattested. (23:27) Dan Lynch has a personal website, which has his blog. (23:55) Bradley referenced the phrase You are no Jack Kennedy which was stated by Bentsen on Wednesday 5 October 1988 during the VP debate between Quayle and Bentsen for the 1988 USA Presidential campaign. Details and background of this are explained by NBC in this story. (26:30) Segment 2 (28:23) Bradley and Karen briefly dissect the interview with Dan. Segment 3 (32:22) Karen and Bradley mention that they'll discuss the Linux Foundation initiative, “Community Bridge” in the next episode. If you want a preview Bradley and Karen's thoughts, you can read their blog post about Linux Foundation's “Community Bridge” initiative. Send feedback and comments on the cast to <[email protected]>. 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. Free as in Freedom is produced by Dan Lynch of danlynch.org. Theme music written and performed by Mike Tarantino with Charlie Paxson on drums. The content of this audcast, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0).