Bradley M. Kuhn is the Executive Director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, a non-profit home for Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects.  Kuhn began his work in the Software Freedom Movement as a volunteer in 1992 as an early adopter of the popular GNU/Linux operating system, and began contributing to various FLOSS projects.  He worked during the 1990s as a system administrator, software developer, and high school Computer Science teacher.  He served as the Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) from 2001-2005, when he left FSF to join the founding team of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC).  Kuhn worked for SFLC as its Policy Analyst and Technology Director from 2005 to 2010.  Kuhn co-founded the Software Freedom Conservancy in 2006, and has been its President since inception.  Since 2010, Kuhn has also been on the Board of Directors of FSF.

Invited Speaker

"Copyleft Licensing and the Challenges of Software Freedom Community"

Bradley M. Kuhn

Executive Director

Software Freedom Conservancy

Wednesday, 13 June 2011

8:00-9:00 a.m.

Alumni Hall, Hetzel Union Building (HUB) - Robeson Center

Abstract

Copyleft licensing, and the GNU General Public License (GPL) in particular, have helped create vibrant software sharing communities.  However, a license alone does not assure the health and functioning of a software development community.  Since GPL allows both commercial and non-commercial improvement and collaboration, politics between these forces sometimes creates challenges that exacerbate tensions between various factions in a software freedom community.  In this talk, Kuhn presents various historical examples that help illuminate how these challenges have been mitigated and addressed in other Free Software communities.