Advocates of free and open source software have had a tough time earning legitimacy and peace of mind in a cutthroat and highly litigious industry. But in some areas, such as copyright, strong licenses have held up to court challenges and put open source efforts on solid legal footing.
In the patent arena, it’s a different story. Addressing attendees at the LinuxCon conference, open source advocate Eben Moglen described the woes of the current patent landscape, and shared his thoughts on his favorite subject: software freedom. Datamation takes a look.
BOSTON — Eben Moglen, director-counsel and chairman at the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), has long stood at the forefront of the free software revolution. At LinuxCon this week, Moglen delivered a keynote address in which he lauded the movement’s many successes, ending with the capacity crowd giving him a standing ovation.
“At the beginning of this conspiracy of ours, we wanted to make it happen that freedom would go inside of everything, and then we could turn it on,” Moglen said. “We are making freedom useful to people.”