Free Software 101
Monday, June 7th, 2010Bradley Kuhn and Karen Sandler of the non-profit Software Freedom Law Center produce a great fortnightly oggcast about free software, called the The Software Freedom Law Show.
While it concentrates on licensing and patents it is not just a programme for lawyers, it has a lot of information about the pratical legal aspects of free software projects for developers, such dealing with GPL violations or trademark problems, choosing a license, and fundraising or setting up a non-profit organisation for a project.
There is an archive of 40 episodes, going back over 2 years, on their site. In a recent episode they described this as making a good introductory course on free software issues — “Free Software 101” — for anyone new to the subject. A really useful resource.
The latest oggcast is a talk on software patents in the USA by Dan Ravicher the Legal Director of SFLC. They will cover the outcome of the US Supreme Court’s Bilski Patent Decision in a future episode once it is known.