FSFE’s Freedom Task Force to make licensing easier

Posted by ciaran on 0

FSFE’s Freedom Task Force was announced on Monday …an announcement slightly overshadowed by SUN promising to GPL Java. What is FTF?

Shane Coughlan – our main FTF guy – will publish more information on this in the next few days, but there is an explanation here:

The idea is that the freedom of our developers, distributors, and users is protected by our licences. In our perfect world, we wouldn’t need licences, but we do. So that programmers can focus on programming, we’re going to try to make licensing as simple as possible by publishing educational info and by building a team of experts that can do this work.

How does this relate to gpl-violations.org? FSFE’s FTF will work with Harald Welte, and will try to reduce his licensing workload so that he can do more coding. We’ll be in close contact though – there are not many in the World with his knowledge and experience on GPL compliance.

How does this relate to FSF’s GPL compliance Lab? (who recently updated their webpage) The two are similar in that FSFE’s FTF will become another shoulder for the burden of bringing people into compliance with the GPL. To the extent that they will differ in method, FSFE’s FTF will probably focus more on the education side of GPL compliance, such as gathering best practices and publishing guides. Another difference is that we won’t only be working on GNU licences, we’ll also help free software projects that use other licences.

That’s the plan, and the direction FTF is starting in. Where it goes could depend on what needs arise and what people ask for help with. Shane’s contact details are on the webpage.