Introduction to User Freedom

Presented at The Circle Of HOPE (2018), July 21, 2018, 6 p.m. (60 minutes)

If you are coding, writing, or making art or any other creative works, at some point you need to pick a license for how you want to share what you've done. A license represents a series of ethical, legal, and values decisions. Instead of proprietary "software" and "culture," you have "free software" and "free culture." The licenses used to accomplish this are the legal embodiment of a set of ideals represented in the four freedoms of free software. This talk will provide a historical and philosophical overview of just what it means for something to be free, why it matters, and what your responsibilities are in a world where our experiences, our selves, and our lives have become intellectual property that may not always belong to us.


Presenters:

  • Karen Sandler as Karen M. Sandler
    **Karen M. Sandler** is the executive director of Conservancy. Karen is known as a cyborg lawyer for her advocacy for free software, particularly in relation to the software on medical devices. Prior to joining Conservancy, she was executive director of the GNOME Foundation. Before that, she was general counsel of the Software Freedom Law Center. Karen co-organizes Outreachy, the award-winning outreach program for women globally and for people of color who are underrepresented in U.S. tech. Karen received the FSF’s Award for the Advancement of Free Software and is a recipient of the O’Reilly Open-Source Award.
  • Molly de Blanc
    **Molly de Blanc** is a free software activist from Somerville, Massachusetts. She is a campaigns manager at the Free Software Foundation. Molly serves on the board of directors of the Open Source Initiative. She contributes to the Debian Project, helping to organize their participation in programs like Google Summer of Code and Outreachy.

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