Episode 0x1E: Our Non-Profits Considered

<p> <a href="https://faif.us/cast-media/FaiF_0x1E_Non-Profits-Considered.ogg"><img alt="[Direct download of cast in Ogg/Vorbis format]" src="https://faif.us/static/img/cast/audio_ogg_button.png"/></a> <a href="https://faif.us/cast-media/FaiF_0x1E_Non-Profits-Considered.mp3"><img alt="[Direct download of cast in MP3 format]" src="https://faif.us/static/img/cast/audio_mp3_button.png"/></a> </p> <p> <p>Karen and Bradley discuss recent debates about the value of non-profit organizations for Free Software.</p> </p> <h3>Show Notes:</h3> <h4>Segment 0 (00:34)</h4> <ul> <li><a href="http://identi.ca/conversation/86021752#notice-86121871">Fontana (and other Red Hat employees) pointed out some imprecision</a> in what Bradley said in <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2011/nov/29/0x1D/">Episode 0x1D</a> about Debian non-free. (01:07)</li> <li>A <a href="http://info9.net/wiki/fosdem/LegalIssuesDevRoom/CFP/">call for participation</a> has <a href="https://lists.fosdem.org/pipermail/fosdem/2011-November/001356.html">been announced</a> for <a href="http://info9.net/wiki/fosdem/LegalIssuesDevRoom/">the <cite>Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom</cite></a> at <a href="http://fosdem.org/2012/">FOSDEM 2012</a>. Please submit a proposal by 30 December 2011 (04:30)</li> <li>A recent debate about non-profits started, initiated by a blog post called <a href="http://www.mikealrogers.com/posts/apache-considered-harmful.html"><cite>Apache Considered Harmful</cite></a>. (12:55)</li> <li>Karen and Bradley briefly mentioned that <a href="http://meyerweb.com/eric/comment/chech.html">some now believe that <cite>Considered Harmful Considered Harmful</cite></a> (13:16)</li> <li>A long thread on this issue occurred on the <a href="http://flossfoundations.org/">FLOSS Foundations</a> <a href="http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/foundations">mailing list</a> (13:45)</li> <li>Bradley made <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/blog/2011/nov/28/what-npo-for/">an official Conservancy Blog post about the value of non-profits for Free Software</a> (14:17)</li> <li><a href="http://slashdot.org/story/01/08/24/128216/va-linux-to-sell-proprietary-version-of-sourceforge">Sourceforge became proprietary software in 2001</a>, as is well-described in this by <a href="http://www.advogato.org/article/376.html">The Sourceforge proprietarization debacle is well described in an article by Lo&iuml;c Dachary</a>. (19:19)</li> <li>Bradley mentioned <a href="http://faif.us/cast/2011/jun/07/0x11/">FaiFCast Episode 0x11, which discussed the OpenOffice.org/Apache/LibreOffice situation</a>. (44:35)</li> <li>Bradley pointed out that this debate conflates a lot of different issues, and tried to list all the conflated questions here: <ul> <li>Should a non-profit home decide what technical infrastructure is used for a software freedom project? And if so, what should it be?</li> <li>If the projects doesn't provide technological services, should non-profits allow their projects to rely on for-profits for technological or other services?</li> <li>Should a non-profit home set political and social positions that must be followed by the projects? If so, how strictly should they be enforced?</li> <li>Should copyrights be held by the non-profit home of the project, or with the developers, or a mix of the two?</li> <li>Should the non-profit dictate licensing requirements on the project? If so, how many licenses are ok?</li> <li>Should a non-profit dictate strict copyright provenance requirements on their projects? If not, should the non-profit at least provide guidelines and recommendations?</li> </ul> </ul> <hr width="80%"/> <p>Send feedback and comments on the cast to <a href="mailto:[email protected]">&lt;[email protected]&gt;</a>. You can keep in touch with <a href="https://faif.us">Free as in Freedom</a> on our IRC channel, #faif on irc.freenode.net, and by <a href="http://identi.ca/conservancy">following Conservancy on identi.ca</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/conservancy">and Twitter</a>.</p> <p>Free as in Freedom is produced by <a href="http://danlynch.org/blog/">Dan Lynch</a> of <a href="http://danlynch.org/">danlynch.org</a>. Theme music written and performed by <a href="http://www.miketarantino.com">Mike Tarantino</a> with <a href="http://www.charliepaxson.com">Charlie Paxson</a> on drums.</p> <p><a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/4.0/88x31.png" hspace=10 /></a> The content of <span xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Sound" rel="dc:type">this audcast</span>, and the accompanying show notes and music are licensed under the <a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0)</a>. </p>