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Conservancy Blog
Displaying posts tagged conferences
Update from On-Site at linux.conf.au 2017
by on January 19, 2017
Our Executive Director, Karen Sander, and I are both lucky to be here this week in Hobart, Tasmania at LCA (linux.conf.au) 2017. I wrote a blog post last year about how wonderful LCA 2016 was, and how important LCA is generally. LCA 2017 has not disappointed as it continues this excellent 18 year tradition.
LCA is among the few conferences that remain completely community-centric. Unlike many other Linux events, speakers at LCA are chosen by the volunteer organizers based on merit of talk proposals; talks are not for sale at any sponsorship price. The conference is assisted by the fiscal sponsorship of Linux Australia, who provide a non-profit organization that allows the volunteers to put together a truly community event.
As a result, here at LCA, I see upstream open source and free software developers sitting right next to the downstream users who use and maintain deployments of the systems those developers release. There is a friendly and collaborative conversation not just among paid employees of companies that adopt free software, but also individuals who cooperated as hobbyists, and those who aspire to be professionals in the field by attending to learn from others. The power of discussion in such an open and egalitarian environment is palpable and exhilarating. It shows that users and developers harmoniously work together in our community.
Karen and I both have been invited (and kindly funded by Linux Australia!) to speak here many years. This year, I have already participated in a MiniConf co-organized by Conservancy's Evaluation Committee Member Deb Nicholson, and (thanks to the great and efficient on-site AV team) that talk, called “A Beautiful Build: Releasing Linux Source Correctly” can already be viewed online, and so can Karen's main track talk entitled “Surviving the Next 30 Years of Free Software”. In fact, almost all the LCA talks are coming online within about 48 hours and there's a live stream of every room!, and they use free software to do it (of course).
So, if you missed the live stream of my and Karen's tutorial on copyleft earlier today, you'll be able to see it online soon.
We know that for many in the free software community, Australia is a long trip, and many of you can't be here on site for the hallway discussions, but the great content here is made available by the organizers on the Internet. Such hard work is essential to the global education about free software, and we all really appreciate it. (Karen is so excited about what's going on here that she's been giving back to this great conference by volunteering to be a track chair and mic runner for two other talks.)
Finally, I'd like to thank the conference organizers for getting excited about Conservancy's Outreachy project, as the on-site raffle this year is to raise money for LCA to fund an Outreachy intern to help with next year's conference. So, please donate to that if you can. Even if you are not at the conference, you can signup (noting you're not present in the signup comments) and still donate to the campaign (— even though you can't actually win a prize that way, you can use that method to donate to help LCA sponsor an Outreach intern).
I'll be headed back to the USA in just a few days, but I'll be anxiously awaiting for the CFP for linux.conf.au 2018 to open.
Compliance Feedback Sessions in 2017
by on January 13, 2017
While we continue our principled defense of copyleft software on behalf of developers who ask us to do it, Conservancy is committed to examining whether we’re doing things the best we we can. As we publicly promised, we’ve been running feedback sessions on GPL compliance to hear from everyone who is interested in our work.
Bradley conducted a session at Embedded Linux Conference Europe and Brett and I ran one at Linux Plumbers Conference. Both were informative and, honestly, reassuring. While there are some areas we can improve (as a free software organization, we know we can always improve!), our fundamental approach is sound and seems to be in line with what developers and other stakeholders would like us to be doing. Of course, we also have received some mixed messages. Some people strongly criticize us for not being aggressive enough, while others think our rhetoric is a little too strident. What’s been great is to have everything on the table and get people involved. As a public charity, we want to be sure that we are in fact acting in the public’s interest in everything we do.
We’ve got another feedback session scheduled next week at the Linux Kernel Miniconf at linux.conf.au on Monday afternoon. If you’re there I hope you’ll join us. I’ll also be facilitating a fishbowl discussion on GPL compliance at the Legal & Policy Miniconf Tuesday morning. Please let us know if you have any other suggestions for where we should hold more feedback sessions. We’ve been trying to strategically propose these sessions where they’ll be the most effective (we did propose a feedback session with an eye towards getting key corporate leadership feedback at the upcoming Open Source Leadership Summit, but the session was unfortunately not accepted). Other conferences we’ll be at this year include FOSDEM, Campus Party Brasil, SCaLE, LibrePlanet and OSCON. We’ll have a booth at most of these, so even if we don’t have a session please just stop by our booth and tell us what you think!
Lastly, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that there are only days left for us to earn our generous match from Private Internet Access. We’ve made great progress, but we’re only about 70% there! Please sign up as a Supporter - you’ll be donating to the support of our many member projects, copyleft defense, diversity work via Outreachy as well as the overall promotion and advocacy of free software. There’s still time for your donation to be amplified, but only if you sign up now!
ICYMI: “Companies, Free Software, and You”
by on December 8, 2016
At this year’s LibrePlanet, I presented “Companies, Free Software, and You” as a keynote presentation. In the talk, I take a hard look at companies’ engagement in the free software community, dissecting which contributions are productive and weighing them against instances where their interests might diverge from the rest of the community’s.
When that happens, Conservancy is a strong independent voice fighting for the community’s interests, in project leadership, employment agreements, license compliance, and more. Please support Conservancy today to keep the conversation balanced!
Thanks to the Free Software Foundation for running another great conference and preparing this video! Both the talk and the recording are released under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Come see Conservancy at linux.conf.au 2017
by on December 5, 2016
Are you coming to linux.conf.au in January? So are we! We’re presenting a variety of sessions, so whether you’re just starting to learn about free and open source software, or a seasoned contributor who wants to hear about cutting-edge issues, we’ve got something for you.
On Thursday Karen and Bradley offer A Practical Guide to Compliance with the GNU GPL, a pragmatic tutorial on how to comply with the most popular FOSS license. The focus is on providing concrete actions you can take to comply. There’s something for everyone who works with GPL’ed software, whether you’re an upstream contributor, distributor, or lawyer.
On Friday Karen presents Surviving the Next 30 Years of Free Software. As the FOSS community matures and time marches on, we’re starting to see cases where a contributor passes away and a project has to work out legalities with their estate. Karen will explain the law in this area, and suggest next steps for projects and the broader community to make these transitions easier.
As part of the Kernel Miniconf, we’ll also run another feedback session about our GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers. Just like the sessions at ELC EU and LPC, this is your opportunity to hear more about what the program does, how it works, ask questions, and offer ideas for improvement. All interested contributors are welcome to attend. We’ll announce schedule details as they’re available.
We’re looking forward to seeing everyone in Hobart!
