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/dev/lawyer

>> law, technology, and the space between

All content by Kyle E. Mitchell, who is not your lawyer.

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  1. LLMs Make Legal Advice Lossy

    cheap chatbot summaries take important choices away

  2. PolyForm Noncommercial 2.0.0-pre.2

    shorter, better noncommercial license terms for software

  3. PolyForm Noncommercial 2.0.0-pre.1

    shorter, better noncommercial license terms for software

  4. Wired on a Surrogacy Gone Wrong

    a thoroughly modern contract case

  5. Plain Nonsense Trumps Jargon

    the cost of wizardspeak comes due in our time

  6. A Legal Rule That Makes Writing Worse

    moving past the fantasy of consistency

  7. Announcing Blackacre Labs

    have and belong to many readers

  8. A Published Legal Form Under Restrictive Copyright License

    Access 4 Learning’s data privacy terms for schools and vendors

  9. The Headlines Are Evil, And They’re Bringing Us Down

    what the court actually said about Trump’s tariffs

  10. The Fourth Circuit’s Opinion in the Ábrego García Case

    a line-by-line reading

  11. Provisional Guidance for Users of LLM-Based Code Generators

    available intuition for avoiding big risks

  12. Open Source When We Say So

    still stronger claims of self-authority in OSI’s new AI “definition”

  13. Open Source Company as Costco

    parallels weak and strong

  14. Negotiating Bastardry

    unexpected wisdom from a motorcycle channel

  15. Llama 3 versus LLama 3.1 License Terms

    handy redline and takeaways

  16. Not The Same Security Debate

    open source security today is different in kind

  17. Pick-From-a-List Tools

    my favorite heretical UNIX programs

  18. Blue Oak Contributor License

    it’s just a license

  19. Free and Open in the Latest Draft of the EU Cyber Resilience Act

  20. Copyleft Intolerance and the Defining-Open Mind Trap

    forgetting licensing history past, we fail to repeat our successes

  21. Unlimited Indemnity for Unpaid Developers?

    James Bottomley on liability, politics, and forgotten boilerplate

  22. Support the Blue Oak License List

    fund the Web’s actionable allow-list of software licenses

  23. PolyForm Countdown

    a simple, solid form for changing your license later

  24. Toward PolyForm Shield Version 2

    streamline and revise for easier reading

  25. A Short, Simple Template for Scheduled Relicensing

    decouple license rules from how we relax them

  26. Amazon Has a Restricted License, Too

    this is not a bad thing

  27. We Were Wrong About the GPLs

    an unsurprising admission in Conservancy v. Vizio

  28. Understanding “RISC-y Business”

    trading chips progression for chips advantage

  29. Recommended Resource: CRS Congressional Court Watcher

    free briefs of new cases

  30. Two Kinds of “Relicensing”

    going-forward and retroactive

  31. Two Kinds of “Dual Licensing”

    a license operator and a business model

  32. Overloaded

    putting finer points on established fuzzy terms

  33. Real and Imagined CLA Overreach

    CLAs go wrong when they act like hiring terms

  34. Exactly the Wrong AI Copyrightability Case

    Creativity Machine guy assumed away the debate and lost

  35. HashiCorp’s New Licensing

    a new benchmark for presenting license change

  36. Where is the rule that makes vague license rules legal no-ops?

    fear, uncertainty, and doubt upon ethical licenses

  37. No Office Hours

    Internet down hard

  38. Utah Social Media Regulation Act

    two new laws on social media and children

  39. You Do Not Have a Shoe Size

    thirty-five years standing over a bad assumption

  40. On-Cloud Licensing

    the wheel of software delivery keeps on turning

  41. NVIDIA Prismer License

    another noncommercial model license, kind of

  42. Open Source Unsolved Security

    the pointy-headed corpo-types warned us

  43. Wikimedia’s Terms of Use

    thoughts from a recent review

  44. European Office Hours

    more scheduled for next month

  45. The Law Does Not Require Legalese

    a reassuring dive into contract interpretation

  46. Sneaking Things In

    yes, lawyers actually do this

  47. Open RAIL-M Is More Unclear Than Scary

    Does AI devs want to fight abuse, or just not feel bad about enabling it?

  48. Open Game License Version 1.2 Draft

    how to say “irrevocable” like you mean it when you just revoked everybody’s licenses

  49. Office Hours

    call in and ask me questions

  50. Type Error: “Democratizing”

    runaway sales speak hits the curb again

  51. Delayed Release in Investigative Reporting

    newsroom licensing strategy in familiar software terms

  52. This Rich To Open Source

    neglected Torvalds straight-talk on how great software gets made, and by who

  53. MicroHub Sponsorplace

    one software store, many corporate faces

  54. Open Market for Open Software

    coders who can’t afford to do open source will revolutionize software

  55. Notice by Hyperlink

    can’t we just link to the licenses file for our JavaScript?

  56. Waypoint NDA 4.0.0

    now with mergers and acquisitions terms

  57. Putting Software in the Public Domain

    if you want “waive” or “dedicate”, you should probably just “license”

  58. Trademark Undefined Behavior

    the awkward hole in free and open IP

  59. Thoughts on Web Footnotes

    links, notes, asides, details, and parentheticals

  60. Briefless Barristers and Lawyerless Clients

    future Supreme Court justice to young lawyers in 1939

  61. Time Off Summer ’22

    out of office August 7 through 20

  62. New Microsoft Word Comments Weirdness

    a gotcha for legal power users

  63. Legal Sources for Not-a-Lawyers

    learn some law without totally warping your brain

  64. Priest Against Priesthood

    father of FORTRAN on programming in the fifties

  65. The Work, the Tech, and the Crime

    blockchain deserves no regulatory favors

  66. Text Prudent

    what everyone should know about texting, chatting, and the law

  67. Max Korzh’s “His Home”

    a Russian-language rap translation

  68. Legal Versioning

    refined scheme for functional prose projects

  69. From Copy to Reference

    a plan to evolve legal drafting

  70. Zelensky Compound NDA

    the mystery of the ritual runs deeper than law

  71. Copy-and-Paste Goes to Russia

    lawyering by rote in the crazy 1990s

  72. EULAs Aren’t Inherently Evil

    proprietary done right can beat free and open for users

  73. HTML Scripting Tools

    a few free packages I’ve come to use

  74. The Russians Are Coming

    hire the nerds for peace, profit, and progress!

  75. FOSS Fundraiser for Ukraine?

    donors ask questions, panel of licensing lawyers answers

  76. The Open Source Initiative Did Not Win Neo4j v. PureThink

    everywhere it looks, OSI sees itself, and in triumph

  77. Getting the Most From Common Computer Filing Systems

    fundamental techniques for Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, and others

  78. Russia’s “Fake News” Law

    a quick translation

  79. Switching Open Software Terms

    yes, you can switch from MIT to something else

  80. You And Whose GitHub?

    Russian tech source reports state mulling GitHub clone

  81. What Must Be Said

    Boris Grebenshchikov in London

  82. Russia to Legalize Software Piracy

    my show is canceled, business news reports

  83. Ukraine

    donate money against this horrible war

  84. Devs Use Closed Software

    too many devs pretend otherwise

  85. Universal Basic Cop-Out

    We know how to pay devs for software. Some of us just prefer not to.

  86. Software Pay Data 2020

    data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

  87. Be the Water Boy (or Girl!) for Your Neighborhood

    East Oakland Collective’s EBMUD hydrant meter is ready for action

  88. Big Time Public License 2.0.0

    much improved by generous feedback

  89. Second Draft of Waypoint for M&A

    refining acquisition-specific terms to the standard business NDA

  90. Fast Path

    cutting-edge legal terms for software license sales

  91. MIT for Noncommercial is Broken

    use a real noncommercial software license

  92. Payability, Form, and Substance

    getting company to pay you isn’t just about a legal entity

  93. To-Do List Polling

    event-based meatspace task management

  94. Pay the Fiddler

    pithy wisdom from days of yore

  95. Square One 2e1u

    addressing an interesting Utah peculiarity

  96. AWS Contributor Licensing Blurb

    another mutation from the cauldron of CLA angst

  97. What Do We Call Functional Specs for Legal Forms?

    seeking help naming a concept

  98. Waypoint for M&A

    adding acquisition-specific terms to the standard business NDA

  99. Correlation and Causation Symbols

    good shorthand against bad mental shortcuts

  100. Single CLA

    taking back contributor licensing for developers

  101. SaaS Compliance Caveats

    view page source ain’t what it used to be

  102. Blue Oak Open Software Licensing Primer

    Theory of Operation, updated and expanded

  103. Not My Law

    explainer page for cross-border legal help

  104. Specifically Regulating Standardized Contracting

    quick thoughts on the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016

  105. All Heroes, No Casualties

    where are our stories of tech folks done wrong?

  106. The Kingsway Basic License

    hip hop terms through a software lens

  107. Hydrant Meter for the Homeless

    a giant step forward for East Oakland Collective and EBMUD

  108. Redlining in Microsoft Word 365

    a step-by-step guide to comparing legal drafts

  109. Square One Second Edition

    improved US hiring forms and terms

  110. GPL Had Better be a Contract

    SFC’s Vizio suit brings the right kind of claim

  111. PolyForm Commercial Does Individual Licenses Now

    expanding standardization to single-user deals

  112. Pinky Pressing Problem

    discovering and addressing a lapse in typing technique

  113. Signature Blocks 101

    what goes where and why, in brief

  114. L. Peter Deutsch and Stig Hackvän

    cooperation, licensing, and money in 1998

  115. Time Off Summer ’21

    out of office August 29 through September 8

  116. Help Fund Water for the Homeless

    legal access to public water for the East Bay’s unhoused

  117. Upgrading to Debian Bullseye

    a couple hurdles jumped

  118. Contract by E-Mail

    contract power is in your hands

  119. The Developer Certificate of Origin is Not a Contributor License Agreement

    dispelling magical DCO thinking to reveal the system below

  120. Standardize Commercial Software Licensing

    announcing PolyForm Commercial, with a call for help

  121. License Round-Up

    listing licenses I’ve contributed to

  122. Waypoint NDA 3.0.0

    small terms fixes, big presentation improvements

  123. In Praise of Cron

    seventies-era automation for the working lawyer

  124. Big Time Public License 1.0.0

    a FRAND-ly license for software

  125. Legal Explainer Sites

    one-page URLs for common concepts and conundrums

  126. 2020 Oakland Homeless Camp Fires

    data from public records request

  127. Creative Commons’ 2021-2025 Strategy

    a scene stalwart turns “ethical”

  128. The Guestbook NDA

    a standard one-way nondisclosure agreement

  129. 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report

    bold text from the key findings

  130. One-Way NDA

    good names for the next standard NDA?

  131. Citation Hustle

    hooking into academe for fair code credit

  132. Drafter’s Anxiety

    writing new licenses isn’t scary

  133. The Luck of Open Source

    open source without great men

  134. Legal Technology as Regulatory Arbitrage

    a countervailing force toward specialization

  135. Efficient Merit Apocalypse

    a mirror on meritocracy

  136. Sell Babel 8

    ask for the money you need so people can actually pay it

  137. Law Insider’s Contract Teardowns

    lawyers dissect specific contract language

  138. Days of Pain

    returning from a double bout of nerve pain

  139. Open Gaming Deja Vu

    a clear-eyed view of open from 1999

  140. First-Rate Intelligence

    false comfort in U.S. military spending

  141. Support Funding for Cali County Law Libraries

    they’re even more important during pandemic

  142. You Can Still Use the Software

    Justin Colannino on what’s up with new software licenses

  143. Zebra G-750 First Look

    a long-awaited pen arrives on US shores

  144. Flat Forms

    plain language should come in plain pieces

  145. Templating for Lawyers

    learn computer templateering in five minutes flat

  146. Seven Ways to Say “Inequality”

    a short study in the rhetoric of policy

  147. It’s a Trap

    avoid legal structures designed to constrain you

  148. The Origin of the “MIT License”

    how did those famous terms come about?

  149. Cross License Foundations

    decentralized stewardship of collaborative projects

  150. Code Credit License 1.0.0

    a code-for-credit software license

  151. Open Licensing Attacks on Specific Business Models

    an incomplete list

  152. Compliance Industrial Pulpit

    someone tell the enterprise about Open Source 2.0

  153. Where are the Goalposts?

    in response to Luis Villa on SSPL and OSI

  154. The Chalkeaters’ License

    effective folk licensing in the wild

  155. Waypoint Turns Two

    stop wasting time on nondisclosure agreements

  156. Platform Neutrality

    we used to have a principle for this

  157. Square One

    fair terms. free forms. back to work.

  158. Reading AGPL

    a guided introduction for first-timers

  159. Open Source is Discrimination

    that’s the point, or at least it used to be

  160. Righteous, Expedient, Wrong

    OSI swings at Elastic, misses, and leaves a mess

  161. Water Manifolds

    hydrant-based access for the homeless of the Tenderloin

  162. ml5.js Takes a Stand

    a code of conduct with teeth, in the wild

  163. We Are All Internet Realists Now

    web exceptionalism swings both ways

  164. Fake Neutrality

    have it your way ‘til they can afford to have it theirs

  165. The Tension

    panning for hope in a very angry America

  166. Printing Booklets

    less paper, easier reading

  167. No War on Coronavirus

    remembering the other way to see our problems

  168. Lies My Law School Told Me

    in praise of bad propaganda

  169. Don’t Pitch Lawyers

    pitch clients

  170. Deprogramming the Programmer

    throw off your jargon and be free

  171. Authority and Expertise

    digging up the land mines of attorney-client relations

  172. Survive America

    prepping for the obvious

  173. The Future of the Internet

    thanks for letting us know

  174. The War on License Notices

    managing uncertainty at the fringes of open licensing

  175. Don’t Sign Blank Checks

    a problem of pattern recognition

  176. Judicial Website, No Money Down

    sustainability, government style

  177. Water Team on The Oaklandside

    local news org covers water access proposals

  178. Electric, Light, Organized

    flameless light and power stopgaps for the homeless

  179. EBMUD for All

    open letter for homeless access to water

  180. Work Made for Hire … or Not

    one source of complexity in intellectual property terms

  181. Let’s Not All Read Terms of Service

    common quips on website terms miss the point

  182. You Have to Build a Time Machine

    Eventbrite falls into the terms of service trap

  183. How Congress Sees Open Source

    a view from outside

  184. Signing by E-Mail

    a writing is a writing is a writing

  185. Speedier Git for Text File Tracking

    streamlining for small, fast commits to personal records

  186. Doormat 1e

    free no-log, no-track privacy policy

  187. DMCASimple 1e

    another new first edition and website

  188. Turnstile 1e

    first edition and new website

  189. Copyright Notices Begone

    pointless costs of ancient licenses

  190. From Justice With Love

    the antitrust division groks open source strategy

  191. Communes to Cooperatives

    musings of a Drop City scholar

  192. Public Domain Appendix

    public license for From Dictatorship to Democracy

  193. Mix Many Metaphors

    analogies galore in Oracle v. Google oral argument

  194. Oracle v. Google Oral Argument

    major league copyright lawyering at bat

  195. The Ethical Consequences of Our Collective Activities

    professional ethics as the missing root of entitlement?

  196. California Welfare and Institutions Code 17000

    on the books since 1965

  197. Son of Water Boy

    latest lessons and tips

  198. Security Services Terms

    giving a specialized field its due

  199. Types of Lawyers

    major food groups for clients

  200. Amateur Open Econ Toolkit

    compendium of concepts, theories, and theorists

  201. Not the Type

    tech exceptionalism in limp words and phrases

  202. Working in Public

    now comes the coder-celebrity

  203. Connecticut’s Police Bill

    first-read highlights

  204. Water Boy

    working up a playbook for supplying urban campers

  205. A Modest Trademark Proposal

    banish them from permissive open source

  206. In Praise of Juanito Rus

    recognizing professionalism in local public service

  207. Colorado’s Police Reform Law

    first-read highlights

  208. Expert Failure

    lawyers learning from scientists

  209. Programmer Power

    prying open “software freedom”

  210. Threat Rhetoric

    narrative error in policing

  211. Police Qualified Immunity Reading

    recommended overview and primary sources

  212. No Justice

    facing the mirror in a time of inequality

  213. PolyForm Defensive is Now PolyForm Shield

    feedback strikes again

  214. Anything to Everyone

    “defund the police” through the lens of “open source”

  215. Narrative Error

    that’s my hero story, and I’m sticking to it

  216. Acceptable Use

    different delivery, same rules

  217. Facing the Choir

    reading and hearing American police unions

  218. Free & Open Picture Book

    a conundrum in four panels

  219. Normally Open & Normally Closed

    simple templates for restricted terms

  220. Oakland Police Commission

    money, gas, rubber, and “fuck”

  221. DMSimple

    plain and simple DMCA safe harbor terms

  222. The March in Oakland

    a flyover, firsthand account of rally and march

  223. Round Robin 1.0.0

    ready for the field

  224. Round Robin License

    new name, new terms, same great idea

  225. Protestant Work Product

    recognizing overwork in the field

  226. Turnstile

    springboard website terms of service

  227. Progressive Standardization

    standardized contracting can also be flexible

  228. PolyForm Noncompete Licenses

    two new, long-awaited forms

  229. Springboard Agreements

    putting a name to a tool

  230. Lawyerization

    vocabulary for lawyer involvement and influence

  231. “Open Source” Is Nobody’s Property

    if OSI owned it, they wouldn’t be so touchy about it

  232. Two Tiny Web Apps

    long-serving micro-groupware

  233. Name this Contract Type

    agreements incorporating all their terms by reference

  234. Allowable Tolerances

    law can learn a lot from the trades

  235. Antidote

    critical and alternative views on free and open source software

  236. Pay-Per-Law, Inc.

    the glory and agony of Georgia v. Public Resource

  237. Neighbor Meals

    ground game for safer group takeout

  238. redline.commonform.org

    compare Common Form markup online

  239. Common-Pool Pushovers

    Elinor Ostrom without boundaries

  240. edit.commonform.org

    try Common Form’s editing tools online

  241. Common Form, Simplified

    publish, share, save our souls

  242. Locked-In Customers Anonymous

    stop buying software from assholes

  243. No Thanks

    software freedom without programmers

  244. Site of Shame

    if you can’t negotiate, castigate?

  245. The Tote Bag

    remembering the Great Recession

  246. Do Not Track or Do Not Sell

    conflict or convenience?

  247. Open COVID Pledge

    public licensing for pandemic response

  248. Noncompete By Two Other Names

    Why are the last PolyForm licenses taking so long?

  249. Sharetribe Community Public License 1.0, Line by Line

    another everything-but-SaaS license

  250. Intelligent Perception

    low bow to the legal laity

  251. Take the Money and Run

    if you’re not hurting, try helping

  252. CERN OHL-S 2.0, Line by Line

    the open share-alike hardware license we actually need now?

  253. Section 1106 (Loan Forgiveness) of the CARES Act

    formatted, linked, and linkable

  254. Medtronic’s PB560 Ventilator License, Line by Line

    medical device company devises copyleft license

  255. Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment

    Californians probably can’t do advance directives right now, but that’s likely not what they need

  256. Against Legal Technology

    beyond the latest office software

  257. Open Source for Business 3e

    new edition of an oft-recommended book

  258. Subscribe by E-Mail

    another way to see new posts

  259. Sustain Podcast

    business models, licenses, role playing

  260. Not Those Dreams

    Nintendo purges Mario from Dreams

  261. California Medical Directives at Home

    Can we get our end-of-life wishes down without breaking health orders?

  262. Medical Advance Directives Working Group

    looking for lawyers, translators, and editors

  263. notlegaladvice.law

    shareable explainer page

  264. Blue Is Blue

    a strange thing about learned language

  265. World Tour Canceled

    mouse best plans, but what ado now?

  266. Name Calling Isn’t Precise

    “neo-closed” will come and go

  267. Terms of Service, Take Two

    shorter, higher-level, more fun

  268. Foreign Virus

    another good excuse to order in Chinese

  269. Terms of Service, Take One

    reviewing the terms you’ve already agreed to

  270. Copyleft Has No Posse

    war is over, want it or not

  271. Short Spiel on Legal Tech

    law’s retrograde rep is more about tech than law

  272. Dreams Creates a Commons?

    a video game for making video games

  273. Not Not Political

    if software matters, it’s already political

  274. This Mess We’re In

    ethics, open source, and free riding

  275. Skimming Hippocratic License Version 2.0

    text and quick thoughts

  276. Untangling Tech Merit and Tech Privilege

    section 230 is but one kind of subsidy

  277. More Accessible

    small tweaks to better accommodate readers

  278. Data Under Universal Share-Alike

    limits on effective data copyleft

  279. Reduce, Reuse, Reconsider

    if you wish to make a great hacker from scratch, let them reimplement the universe

  280. Patent Potato

    the game that never ends

  281. Scratch Other People’s Itches

    achieve more meaning and feel less alone

  282. Copyleft Should be Scary

    if the virus wasn’t scary, would we wash out hands?

  283. Portland Trip Confirmed

    February 23 to February 29

  284. Open Source Should Come With Warranties

    (from the companies who use it)

  285. CCPA Service Provider Addendum

    plain, minimal form

  286. What did I just agree to?

    Marc Jones on oddities in OSI-approved licenses

  287. Luis Villa’s Licensing Year in Review

    harassment made the list, and should have

  288. Portland in February

    See you there?

  289. Few-Maintainer Projects

    reality-driven expectations

  290. Renaming API Copyleft

    naming for purpose, not implementation

  291. Starting Noncommercial

    famous projects that started noncommercial

  292. API Copyleft 2.0.0-pre.1

    bringing the best of Parity to API Copyleft

  293. Video Footnotes

    one-way video as hackable interactive medium

  294. The Main Event

    Amazon versus Startups and the New York Times

  295. The Doorway NDA

    lawyers earning their stereotypes

  296. Paste Your Terms Into Your E-Mails

    why don’t we do the obvious thing?

  297. Teach Everyone to Be Like Us

    Moxie Marlinspike, wiser than he may have known

  298. git push is the Process

    permissionless license development now

  299. Big Time Public License

    a noncommercial, small-biz license with a big-biz fair terms guarantee

  300. Rakow 2019

    score one, illegal art people

  301. Correct and Intuitive Fairness

    How can a license say what “fair” is ahead of time?

  302. I Am Not Advising Legally

    smart people don’t understand lawyers’ disclaimers

  303. A Fistful of Services

    my go-to web applications and utilities

  304. TNR12 and Be There

    learning from others

  305. npm fund

    new subcommand and metadata standard

  306. Talking Points: Ethical Licenses

    collecting points and counterpoints

  307. Reading the WeAllJS Code of Conduct

    line-by-line and off-the-cuff

  308. XML versus JSON

    key quote form a great paper

  309. Universal Share-Alike License

    copyleft across different kinds of work

  310. Venture Capital Shill

    scapegoating free software’s failures

  311. Nomadic Lawyering

    office out, travel in?

  312. MulanPSL

    a new riff on the Apache patent bargain from China

  313. Heather Meeker on “Ethos Licensing”

    free and open is ethos licensing, too

  314. “BSD with PATENTS” and “BSD-2-Clause Plus Patent” are Not the Same

    similar licenses, very different receptions

  315. Love this License

    law brut with ASCII art

  316. Blue Oak Guide to Copyleft

    short introduction and license families

  317. Waypoint Trademark

    protecting the integrity of a standard form

  318. CASE Act Flythrough

    notes from a quick read of H.R. 2426

  319. Blue Oak Test Suite

    test cases for new public licenses

  320. Blue Oak Reading List

    reading list for lawyers new to open source

  321. XLC Building Blocks

    essential concepts and vocabulary for cross-license collaboratives

  322. Cross-License Collaboratives

    decentralizing contributor license agreements

  323. Standards, Patents, Open Source

    towards constructive collaboration across practice communities

  324. Blue Oak Guidance on Mergers and Acquisitions

    please stop paying me so much to fix reps and warranties

  325. No LICENSE

    they won’t see your funding plea if they never look

  326. Our Ethics, Not Yours

    in defense of Seth Vargo and morality-first licenses

  327. The Tyranny of Time

    licensing gives developers much-needed flexibility

  328. Open Core is Not a Good Story

    three better ways to express yourself and your company

  329. Open Legal Podcast?

    considering an open legal podcast

  330. Is this conference a good idea?

    forthcoming talk at a conference

  331. The Great Open Source Shake-Up

    more mandatory reading from Kate Downing

  332. Here Comes the CCPA

    my annotated copy of the statute

  333. Waypoint 2.0.0

    a more adaptable, international standard

  334. Changeblog

    a few thoughts on a friend’s podcast appearance

  335. Require Credit For Your Software

    a general-purpose legal tool to require credit for open work

  336. Waypoint Abroad

    seeking quick reads from non-US counsel

  337. PANDA for Privacy

    the NDA for your personal information

  338. PolyForm 1.0.0

    standard noncommercial software licenses at last

  339. Heather Meeker on Patent Risk Allocation

    unique compilation of arguments and dynamics

  340. Get In, Get Out

    open source advice for new programmers breaking into the industry

  341. Help Take the Waypoint NDA International

    a call for help from common-law colleagues

  342. Open Letters

    a snail mail experiment

  343. A Twit No More

    farewell, Twitter

  344. Dark Arts at Daybreak

    the end of club rule in open source law

  345. Operating Environment

    essential industry background for reading open software licenses

  346. SSPL Was Not Commons Clause

    how open licensing blew its biggest opportunity of the 2010s

  347. PolyForm Project

    simple, standard, plain-language software licenses

  348. Mortarboard Licenses

    graduate to new public license terms

  349. Schools of Cohesion

    exploring the crosswise policy biases we learn from open software

  350. Prone Blogging Setup

    how to type when the pain puts you on your back

  351. Tyranny of Permissionlessness

    open source’s narrow focus further empowers those with other ways to exclude

  352. Don’t Rely on OSI Approval

    activist approval does not track practical needs

  353. AFL-3.0 versus OSL-3.0

    a redline (diff) with important network terms highlighted

  354. The Waypoint NDA

    stop wasting time on NDAs

  355. #wontfix

    endorsements can’t fix the Open Source Definition

  356. Calls to Sustainability Action via package.json

    a new proposal, schema, and tools

  357. Enterprise Ready Open Software License Supplement

    the status quo, plus money for devs

  358. Stairway to Heaven

    repairing broken steps to software license Nirvana

  359. The Diachronic Treadmill License

    automatically reward supporters with copyleft exceptions

  360. License Utopia

    just four licenses for all of open source

  361. Ethical Subcommons Starter Kit

    bringing openness to software of moral concern

  362. Weak or Strong is Wrong

    towards selective or consistent copyleft

  363. Deprecation Notice: MIT and BSD

    it’s time to retire thirty-year-old academic licenses

  364. Blue Oak Council

    opening the software commons to everyone

  365. Back to IP

    the copyright giant has a policy

  366. Indie Open Source

    developing resource for indie-ready business models

  367. Open Source Software License Reading List

    a comprehensive curriculum for new license wonks

  368. First Thoughts on the Redis Source Available License Agreement

    evident demand for license rules on API boundaries

  369. API Copyleft License 1.0.0

    first release of API-boundary copyleft form

  370. API Copyleft

    functionality, interfaces, and line drawing in a new copyleft paradigm

  371. Critique This License

    developing a standard paid-software license

  372. Shared Component License

    first shot at a short, plain license in the vein of Mongo’s SSPL

  373. Outer Source

    open software by closed methods

  374. The Discipline of Stated Purpose

    write out the purposes of legal terms in contracts

  375. Availability Dashboard

    professional availability now online

  376. Apache-2.0 versus ECL-2.0

    a redline (diff) showing substantive changes

  377. Open Source is Not About You

    a minimal, functionalist view of open source

  378. Open Handicaps

    Did permissive used to advantage open work like copyleft does today?

  379. Selective Openness

    making money by choosing what to give away

  380. The Open Source Definition as Copyleft Regulation

    an in-depth review of commonly cited criteria

  381. The Copyleft Bust Up

    loopholes, licenses, and realpolitik in open source

  382. How to Speak Copyleft

    the missing vocabulary of copyleft design

  383. Elsewhere: Mapping Open Business Models

    crosspost from the License Zero blog

  384. Seeking Comment: Copyright Notice Recommendation

    first stab at a pragmatic best-practice guide

  385. A Canting Tribe Are We

    attacking the NDA problem with standards networks

  386. Indirect Licensing

    dispensing software licenses in the Internet era

  387. Contributor Councils

    relicensing without foundation, BDFL, or unanimity

  388. Motorcycles in the Wind

    do not do or die

  389. Patents for Software Freedom

    gun-shy insurgents and the heavy weapons of IP law

  390. Bilking Angels

    celestial finance for earth-bound developers

  391. Crowd Hiring

    assurance contracts for short-term open software maintenance

  392. Quick Read of Tidelift’s Lifting Agreement

    nits picked in the developer terms for a new pay-the-devs company

  393. Private Changes in Free Software Copyleft Licenses

    Where’s the fifth freedom?

  394. Enforce Open Source Licenses with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act

    takedown power for DIY developers

  395. Unhappy Coincidences

    marriages of licensing convenience, and changed circumstances

  396. Selective Mythology

    defining open source for fun and profit, in the shadow of the enterprise

  397. Attending LegalHackers Summit

  398. The Decentralization Game

    tips for values-forward reformers

  399. The Posterity Public License

    a strong-attribution open source license

  400. Interviewed on Open Source and Money

    TechCrunch article on problems and solutions

  401. Digging Contracts Out of the Hole

    simple tools for drafting to be proud of

  402. California Work Made for Hire Statutes

    work made for hire contracts can make contractors employees for state employment insurance purposes

  403. Plain GDPR Processor Addendum

    open form plain-language processor addendum

  404. Plain Terms of Service

    open form terms of service for websites

  405. Proseline

    peer to peer prose editing

  406. Six Great Deals Books

    read these books

  407. Public Domain Chronicle

    a fast, easy, and free way to secure scientific methods and findings for the public domain

  408. Help Wanted

    kinds of help I could use

  409. Transparent Contract Components

    sharper tools, finer toolmarks

  410. MPL-2.0 versus OPL-2.1

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  411. Lexical Scope for Contracts

    wandering ever closer to LISP

  412. I Have Another Blog

    you may want to subscribe on License Zero, too

  413. Licence Libre du Québec – Réciprocité versus - Réciprocité forte

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  414. CLAs are Not a Sham

    licensing with friends, improved and improving

  415. The Well Appointed Skinner Box

    farewell, Medium

  416. Contract Components

    fine-grained means of abstraction in legal drafting

  417. Debian Free Software Guidelines versus the Open Source Definition

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  418. Mercenary Rapport

    moral blindness in open source on social media

  419. Unsustainability at Scale

    today’s tools for yesterday’s problems tomorrow

  420. Feed this Bear

    indie coder, promote thyself!

  421. Overkill

    doing IP law wrong, and getting away with it

  422. The License Zero Manifesto

    sustainable software in the open

  423. Prescription Contracts

    thinking about direct lawyer guidance on rxnda.com

  424. Null Value

    against demise of the hacker public license

  425. Nobody’s Clients

  426. RxNDA.com

    breaking the NDA logjam

  427. Seven Takeaways from the SEC DAO Report

    reading the tea leaves of the Commission’s first major ICO report

  428. Switchmode Developer Agreement

    an open form contract for open source contractors

  429. Open Software Service Terms

    legal terms for paid web apps, now available in the English language

  430. It’s Not About Community

    another view of Open Source

  431. Open Source: Theory of Operation

    a short, practical guide to open source software for programmers at work

  432. Debian 8.7 on Dell Optiplex 7010

  433. Open Source License Business Perception Report

    the pain and confusion of common open licenses, roughly quantified

  434. Against Legislating the Nonobvious

    short-order feedback on the default contributor license in GitHub’s draft terms of service

  435. The Mendicant Maintainerati

    no holy fools for Open Source

  436. The MIT License, Line by Line

    171 words every programmer should understand

  437. The Earl of Ethereum’s Case

    Who keeps a blockchain’s conscience?

  438. Deal Mechanic

    The writing on the door.

  439. Emancipation by Reference

    I am just a copy of a copy of a copy. Everything I say you have read before.

  440. Node.js Streams

    fundamental abstractions reviewed and revisited

  441. IP Field Guide

    publicly licensed, publicly available intro for non-lawyers

  442. The JavaScript Joke Was on Me

    or, a few things learned the hard way

  443. Circulation Policy

    Confidentiality rules and procedures for the great Common Form library in the sky

  444. Annotations in Context

    A first attempt at useful, responsible Common Form annotations

  445. I Don’t Want to Know What “Open Source” Means

    I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all on GitHub.

  446. License from Who?

    Safe open-source licensing means more than a LICENSE file.

  447. The Triplebyte Plan

    The tangled web of one start-up equity plan

  448. The Berneout Pledge

    Sucks less than CLAs!

  449. First Read: The Fair Source License

    Text and my first thoughts on a new, non-open source form license

  450. I’ll Never Be a Super Lawyer

    In feigned ignorance there is no grace.

  451. Startup Unix

    An open legal operating system for start-up technology companies

  452. What Enumeration Means

    Enumeration is an essential contract drafting tool. Don’t disclaim it!

  453. Template Ambiguity

    Document assembly can make ambiguity even harder to spot.

  454. The Blanks Problem

    A tough Common Form design decision explained.

  455. Term Injection

    Fighting insertion of unexpected terms in automated form contracts

  456. React Patent Redline

    Changes to Facebook’s patent grant for React, Flux, Immutable, &c.

  457. Certificated Assent

    How signed is signed enough for a hosted software licensing deal?

  458. Hacking Common Form

    Overview of existing Common Form software for programmers

  459. Terms of Service; Already Read

    Verifiable contracts should help consumers, too.

  460. Reproduction of Hierarchy

    Markdown isn’t great for contracts. HTML5 is better.

  461. Index Card Contracts

    Common Form for paper people

  462. Grab-Bag Contracts

    Might we write contracts like we fill shopping bags at the grocery store?

  463. Named Provisions

    If contract section numbers are just another namespace, can they be replaced with defined terms?

  464. vesting.js

    From code to law and back again

  465. Blind Patches

    What if open-source contributors could submit patches anonymously and choose to claim credit later?

  466. Modularity is not the Law

    Ancient and modern principles of contract interpretation work against contracts made of modular parts

  467. The Halliburton Hypothesis

    Quantifying the negotiating process to mount attacks on the confidentiality of a public contract forms repository

  468. Value Statement

    as found at the feet of my bills

  469. FTC 2014 Year in Review

    What do the FTC’s 2014 privacy and security enforcement actions teach tech companies?

  470. Common Form

    Composable, verifiable, shareable form contracts for the modern practice of law

  471. deflect.js

    An ECMAScript module fusing Node.js error-first convention with continuation passing style, plus a twist to make composed stacks of asynchronous functions dynamic

  472. Deep Data Privacy Risk

    Cheap storage technology isn’t just changing what information we store; it’s also changing how we store familiar kinds of information. Both developments have implications for privacy.