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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. Freemium the Registry

    Laurie Voss on an open source funding model

  2. PolyForm Noncommercial 2.0.0-pre.3

    steps toward 2.0.0

  3. Common Form Toolbox

    quick utilities for editing contract text

  4. Sans-Serif Fonts for Contracts

    a systematic search

  5. Open Community License v1

    an unusual non-commercial hardware-software combo license from 3D printing

  6. Open Core Ventures Source Available License Version 1.0

    a very short non-production license with twists

  7. LLMs Make Legal Advice Lossy

    cheap chatbot summaries take important choices away

  8. PolyForm Noncommercial 2.0.0-pre.2

    shorter, better noncommercial license terms for software

  9. PolyForm Noncommercial 2.0.0-pre.1

    shorter, better noncommercial license terms for software

  10. Wired on a Surrogacy Gone Wrong

    a thoroughly modern contract case

  11. Plain Nonsense Trumps Jargon

    the cost of wizardspeak comes due in our time

  12. A Legal Rule That Makes Writing Worse

    moving past the fantasy of consistency

  13. Announcing Blackacre Labs

    have and belong to many readers

  14. A Published Legal Form Under Restrictive Copyright License

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

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

    what the court actually said about Trump’s tariffs

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

    a line-by-line reading

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

    available intuition for avoiding big risks

  18. Open Source When We Say So

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

  19. Open Source Company as Costco

    parallels weak and strong

  20. Negotiating Bastardry

    unexpected wisdom from a motorcycle channel

  21. Llama 3 versus LLama 3.1 License Terms

    handy redline and takeaways

  22. Not The Same Security Debate

    open source security today is different in kind

  23. Pick-From-a-List Tools

    my favorite heretical UNIX programs

  24. Blue Oak Contributor License

    it’s just a license

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

  26. Copyleft Intolerance and the Defining-Open Mind Trap

    forgetting licensing history past, we fail to repeat our successes

  27. Unlimited Indemnity for Unpaid Developers?

    James Bottomley on liability, politics, and forgotten boilerplate

  28. Support the Blue Oak License List

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

  29. PolyForm Countdown

    a simple, solid form for changing your license later

  30. Toward PolyForm Shield Version 2

    streamline and revise for easier reading

  31. A Short, Simple Template for Scheduled Relicensing

    decouple license rules from how we relax them

  32. Amazon Has a Restricted License, Too

    this is not a bad thing

  33. We Were Wrong About the GPLs

    an unsurprising admission in Conservancy v. Vizio

  34. Understanding “RISC-y Business”

    trading chips progression for chips advantage

  35. Recommended Resource: CRS Congressional Court Watcher

    free briefs of new cases

  36. Two Kinds of “Relicensing”

    going-forward and retroactive

  37. Two Kinds of “Dual Licensing”

    a license operator and a business model

  38. Overloaded

    putting finer points on established fuzzy terms

  39. Real and Imagined CLA Overreach

    CLAs go wrong when they act like hiring terms

  40. Exactly the Wrong AI Copyrightability Case

    Creativity Machine guy assumed away the debate and lost

  41. HashiCorp’s New Licensing

    a new benchmark for presenting license change

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

    fear, uncertainty, and doubt upon ethical licenses

  43. No Office Hours

    Internet down hard

  44. Utah Social Media Regulation Act

    two new laws on social media and children

  45. You Do Not Have a Shoe Size

    thirty-five years standing over a bad assumption

  46. On-Cloud Licensing

    the wheel of software delivery keeps on turning

  47. NVIDIA Prismer License

    another noncommercial model license, kind of

  48. Open Source Unsolved Security

    the pointy-headed corpo-types warned us

  49. Wikimedia’s Terms of Use

    thoughts from a recent review

  50. European Office Hours

    more scheduled for next month

  51. The Law Does Not Require Legalese

    a reassuring dive into contract interpretation

  52. Sneaking Things In

    yes, lawyers actually do this

  53. Open RAIL-M Is More Unclear Than Scary

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

  54. Open Game License Version 1.2 Draft

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

  55. Office Hours

    call in and ask me questions

  56. Type Error: “Democratizing”

    runaway sales speak hits the curb again

  57. Delayed Release in Investigative Reporting

    newsroom licensing strategy in familiar software terms

  58. This Rich To Open Source

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

  59. MicroHub Sponsorplace

    one software store, many corporate faces

  60. Open Market for Open Software

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

  61. Notice by Hyperlink

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

  62. Waypoint NDA 4.0.0

    now with mergers and acquisitions terms

  63. Putting Software in the Public Domain

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

  64. Trademark Undefined Behavior

    the awkward hole in free and open IP

  65. Thoughts on Web Footnotes

    links, notes, asides, details, and parentheticals

  66. Briefless Barristers and Lawyerless Clients

    future Supreme Court justice to young lawyers in 1939

  67. Time Off Summer ’22

    out of office August 7 through 20

  68. New Microsoft Word Comments Weirdness

    a gotcha for legal power users

  69. Legal Sources for Not-a-Lawyers

    learn some law without totally warping your brain

  70. Priest Against Priesthood

    father of FORTRAN on programming in the fifties

  71. The Work, the Tech, and the Crime

    blockchain deserves no regulatory favors

  72. Text Prudent

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

  73. Max Korzh’s “His Home”

    a Russian-language rap translation

  74. Legal Versioning

    refined scheme for functional prose projects

  75. From Copy to Reference

    a plan to evolve legal drafting

  76. Zelensky Compound NDA

    the mystery of the ritual runs deeper than law

  77. Copy-and-Paste Goes to Russia

    lawyering by rote in the crazy 1990s

  78. EULAs Aren’t Inherently Evil

    proprietary done right can beat free and open for users

  79. HTML Scripting Tools

    a few free packages I’ve come to use

  80. The Russians Are Coming

    hire the nerds for peace, profit, and progress!

  81. FOSS Fundraiser for Ukraine?

    donors ask questions, panel of licensing lawyers answers

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

    everywhere it looks, OSI sees itself, and in triumph

  83. Getting the Most From Common Computer Filing Systems

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

  84. Russia’s “Fake News” Law

    a quick translation

  85. Switching Open Software Terms

    yes, you can switch from MIT to something else

  86. You And Whose GitHub?

    Russian tech source reports state mulling GitHub clone

  87. What Must Be Said

    Boris Grebenshchikov in London

  88. Russia to Legalize Software Piracy

    my show is canceled, business news reports

  89. Ukraine

    donate money against this horrible war

  90. Devs Use Closed Software

    too many devs pretend otherwise

  91. Universal Basic Cop-Out

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

  92. Software Pay Data 2020

    data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

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

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

  94. Big Time Public License 2.0.0

    much improved by generous feedback

  95. Second Draft of Waypoint for M&A

    refining acquisition-specific terms to the standard business NDA

  96. Fast Path

    cutting-edge legal terms for software license sales

  97. MIT for Noncommercial is Broken

    use a real noncommercial software license

  98. Payability, Form, and Substance

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

  99. To-Do List Polling

    event-based meatspace task management

  100. Pay the Fiddler

    pithy wisdom from days of yore

  101. Square One 2e1u

    addressing an interesting Utah peculiarity

  102. AWS Contributor Licensing Blurb

    another mutation from the cauldron of CLA angst

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

    seeking help naming a concept

  104. Waypoint for M&A

    adding acquisition-specific terms to the standard business NDA

  105. Correlation and Causation Symbols

    good shorthand against bad mental shortcuts

  106. Single CLA

    taking back contributor licensing for developers

  107. SaaS Compliance Caveats

    view page source ain’t what it used to be

  108. Blue Oak Open Software Licensing Primer

    Theory of Operation, updated and expanded

  109. Not My Law

    explainer page for cross-border legal help

  110. Specifically Regulating Standardized Contracting

    quick thoughts on the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016

  111. All Heroes, No Casualties

    where are our stories of tech folks done wrong?

  112. The Kingsway Basic License

    hip hop terms through a software lens

  113. Hydrant Meter for the Homeless

    a giant step forward for East Oakland Collective and EBMUD

  114. Redlining in Microsoft Word 365

    a step-by-step guide to comparing legal drafts

  115. Square One Second Edition

    improved US hiring forms and terms

  116. GPL Had Better be a Contract

    SFC’s Vizio suit brings the right kind of claim

  117. PolyForm Commercial Does Individual Licenses Now

    expanding standardization to single-user deals

  118. Pinky Pressing Problem

    discovering and addressing a lapse in typing technique

  119. Signature Blocks 101

    what goes where and why, in brief

  120. L. Peter Deutsch and Stig Hackvän

    cooperation, licensing, and money in 1998

  121. Time Off Summer ’21

    out of office August 29 through September 8

  122. Help Fund Water for the Homeless

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

  123. Upgrading to Debian Bullseye

    a couple hurdles jumped

  124. Contract by E-Mail

    contract power is in your hands

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

    dispelling magical DCO thinking to reveal the system below

  126. Standardize Commercial Software Licensing

    announcing PolyForm Commercial, with a call for help

  127. License Round-Up

    listing licenses I’ve contributed to

  128. Waypoint NDA 3.0.0

    small terms fixes, big presentation improvements

  129. In Praise of Cron

    seventies-era automation for the working lawyer

  130. Big Time Public License 1.0.0

    a FRAND-ly license for software

  131. Legal Explainer Sites

    one-page URLs for common concepts and conundrums

  132. 2020 Oakland Homeless Camp Fires

    data from public records request

  133. Creative Commons’ 2021-2025 Strategy

    a scene stalwart turns “ethical”

  134. The Guestbook NDA

    a standard one-way nondisclosure agreement

  135. 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report

    bold text from the key findings

  136. One-Way NDA

    good names for the next standard NDA?

  137. Citation Hustle

    hooking into academe for fair code credit

  138. Drafter’s Anxiety

    writing new licenses isn’t scary

  139. The Luck of Open Source

    open source without great men

  140. Legal Technology as Regulatory Arbitrage

    a countervailing force toward specialization

  141. Efficient Merit Apocalypse

    a mirror on meritocracy

  142. Sell Babel 8

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

  143. Law Insider’s Contract Teardowns

    lawyers dissect specific contract language

  144. Days of Pain

    returning from a double bout of nerve pain

  145. Open Gaming Deja Vu

    a clear-eyed view of open from 1999

  146. First-Rate Intelligence

    false comfort in U.S. military spending

  147. Support Funding for Cali County Law Libraries

    they’re even more important during pandemic

  148. You Can Still Use the Software

    Justin Colannino on what’s up with new software licenses

  149. Zebra G-750 First Look

    a long-awaited pen arrives on US shores

  150. Flat Forms

    plain language should come in plain pieces

  151. Templating for Lawyers

    learn computer templateering in five minutes flat

  152. Seven Ways to Say “Inequality”

    a short study in the rhetoric of policy

  153. It’s a Trap

    avoid legal structures designed to constrain you

  154. The Origin of the “MIT License”

    how did those famous terms come about?

  155. Cross License Foundations

    decentralized stewardship of collaborative projects

  156. Code Credit License 1.0.0

    a code-for-credit software license

  157. Open Licensing Attacks on Specific Business Models

    an incomplete list

  158. Compliance Industrial Pulpit

    someone tell the enterprise about Open Source 2.0

  159. Where are the Goalposts?

    in response to Luis Villa on SSPL and OSI

  160. The Chalkeaters’ License

    effective folk licensing in the wild

  161. Waypoint Turns Two

    stop wasting time on nondisclosure agreements

  162. Platform Neutrality

    we used to have a principle for this

  163. Square One

    fair terms. free forms. back to work.

  164. Reading AGPL

    a guided introduction for first-timers

  165. Open Source is Discrimination

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

  166. Righteous, Expedient, Wrong

    OSI swings at Elastic, misses, and leaves a mess

  167. Water Manifolds

    hydrant-based access for the homeless of the Tenderloin

  168. ml5.js Takes a Stand

    a code of conduct with teeth, in the wild

  169. We Are All Internet Realists Now

    web exceptionalism swings both ways

  170. Fake Neutrality

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

  171. The Tension

    panning for hope in a very angry America

  172. Printing Booklets

    less paper, easier reading

  173. No War on Coronavirus

    remembering the other way to see our problems

  174. Lies My Law School Told Me

    in praise of bad propaganda

  175. Don’t Pitch Lawyers

    pitch clients

  176. Deprogramming the Programmer

    throw off your jargon and be free

  177. Authority and Expertise

    digging up the land mines of attorney-client relations

  178. Survive America

    prepping for the obvious

  179. The Future of the Internet

    thanks for letting us know

  180. The War on License Notices

    managing uncertainty at the fringes of open licensing

  181. Don’t Sign Blank Checks

    a problem of pattern recognition

  182. Judicial Website, No Money Down

    sustainability, government style

  183. Water Team on The Oaklandside

    local news org covers water access proposals

  184. Electric, Light, Organized

    flameless light and power stopgaps for the homeless

  185. EBMUD for All

    open letter for homeless access to water

  186. Work Made for Hire … or Not

    one source of complexity in intellectual property terms

  187. Let’s Not All Read Terms of Service

    common quips on website terms miss the point

  188. You Have to Build a Time Machine

    Eventbrite falls into the terms of service trap

  189. How Congress Sees Open Source

    a view from outside

  190. Signing by E-Mail

    a writing is a writing is a writing

  191. Speedier Git for Text File Tracking

    streamlining for small, fast commits to personal records

  192. Doormat 1e

    free no-log, no-track privacy policy

  193. DMCASimple 1e

    another new first edition and website

  194. Turnstile 1e

    first edition and new website

  195. Copyright Notices Begone

    pointless costs of ancient licenses

  196. From Justice With Love

    the antitrust division groks open source strategy

  197. Communes to Cooperatives

    musings of a Drop City scholar

  198. Public Domain Appendix

    public license for From Dictatorship to Democracy

  199. Mix Many Metaphors

    analogies galore in Oracle v. Google oral argument

  200. Oracle v. Google Oral Argument

    major league copyright lawyering at bat

  201. The Ethical Consequences of Our Collective Activities

    professional ethics as the missing root of entitlement?

  202. California Welfare and Institutions Code 17000

    on the books since 1965

  203. Son of Water Boy

    latest lessons and tips

  204. Security Services Terms

    giving a specialized field its due

  205. Types of Lawyers

    major food groups for clients

  206. Amateur Open Econ Toolkit

    compendium of concepts, theories, and theorists

  207. Not the Type

    tech exceptionalism in limp words and phrases

  208. Working in Public

    now comes the coder-celebrity

  209. Connecticut’s Police Bill

    first-read highlights

  210. Water Boy

    working up a playbook for supplying urban campers

  211. A Modest Trademark Proposal

    banish them from permissive open source

  212. In Praise of Juanito Rus

    recognizing professionalism in local public service

  213. Colorado’s Police Reform Law

    first-read highlights

  214. Expert Failure

    lawyers learning from scientists

  215. Programmer Power

    prying open “software freedom”

  216. Threat Rhetoric

    narrative error in policing

  217. Police Qualified Immunity Reading

    recommended overview and primary sources

  218. No Justice

    facing the mirror in a time of inequality

  219. PolyForm Defensive is Now PolyForm Shield

    feedback strikes again

  220. Anything to Everyone

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

  221. Narrative Error

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

  222. Acceptable Use

    different delivery, same rules

  223. Facing the Choir

    reading and hearing American police unions

  224. Free & Open Picture Book

    a conundrum in four panels

  225. Normally Open & Normally Closed

    simple templates for restricted terms

  226. Oakland Police Commission

    money, gas, rubber, and “fuck”

  227. DMSimple

    plain and simple DMCA safe harbor terms

  228. The March in Oakland

    a flyover, firsthand account of rally and march

  229. Round Robin 1.0.0

    ready for the field

  230. Round Robin License

    new name, new terms, same great idea

  231. Protestant Work Product

    recognizing overwork in the field

  232. Turnstile

    springboard website terms of service

  233. Progressive Standardization

    standardized contracting can also be flexible

  234. PolyForm Noncompete Licenses

    two new, long-awaited forms

  235. Springboard Agreements

    putting a name to a tool

  236. Lawyerization

    vocabulary for lawyer involvement and influence

  237. “Open Source” Is Nobody’s Property

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

  238. Two Tiny Web Apps

    long-serving micro-groupware

  239. Name this Contract Type

    agreements incorporating all their terms by reference

  240. Allowable Tolerances

    law can learn a lot from the trades

  241. Antidote

    critical and alternative views on free and open source software

  242. Pay-Per-Law, Inc.

    the glory and agony of Georgia v. Public Resource

  243. Neighbor Meals

    ground game for safer group takeout

  244. redline.commonform.org

    compare Common Form markup online

  245. Common-Pool Pushovers

    Elinor Ostrom without boundaries

  246. edit.commonform.org

    try Common Form’s editing tools online

  247. Common Form, Simplified

    publish, share, save our souls

  248. Locked-In Customers Anonymous

    stop buying software from assholes

  249. No Thanks

    software freedom without programmers

  250. Site of Shame

    if you can’t negotiate, castigate?

  251. The Tote Bag

    remembering the Great Recession

  252. Do Not Track or Do Not Sell

    conflict or convenience?

  253. Open COVID Pledge

    public licensing for pandemic response

  254. Noncompete By Two Other Names

    Why are the last PolyForm licenses taking so long?

  255. Sharetribe Community Public License 1.0, Line by Line

    another everything-but-SaaS license

  256. Intelligent Perception

    low bow to the legal laity

  257. Take the Money and Run

    if you’re not hurting, try helping

  258. CERN OHL-S 2.0, Line by Line

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

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

    formatted, linked, and linkable

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

    medical device company devises copyleft license

  261. Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment

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

  262. Against Legal Technology

    beyond the latest office software

  263. Open Source for Business 3e

    new edition of an oft-recommended book

  264. Subscribe by E-Mail

    another way to see new posts

  265. Sustain Podcast

    business models, licenses, role playing

  266. Not Those Dreams

    Nintendo purges Mario from Dreams

  267. California Medical Directives at Home

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

  268. Medical Advance Directives Working Group

    looking for lawyers, translators, and editors

  269. notlegaladvice.law

    shareable explainer page

  270. Blue Is Blue

    a strange thing about learned language

  271. World Tour Canceled

    mouse best plans, but what ado now?

  272. Name Calling Isn’t Precise

    “neo-closed” will come and go

  273. Terms of Service, Take Two

    shorter, higher-level, more fun

  274. Foreign Virus

    another good excuse to order in Chinese

  275. Terms of Service, Take One

    reviewing the terms you’ve already agreed to

  276. Copyleft Has No Posse

    war is over, want it or not

  277. Short Spiel on Legal Tech

    law’s retrograde rep is more about tech than law

  278. Dreams Creates a Commons?

    a video game for making video games

  279. Not Not Political

    if software matters, it’s already political

  280. This Mess We’re In

    ethics, open source, and free riding

  281. Skimming Hippocratic License Version 2.0

    text and quick thoughts

  282. Untangling Tech Merit and Tech Privilege

    section 230 is but one kind of subsidy

  283. More Accessible

    small tweaks to better accommodate readers

  284. Data Under Universal Share-Alike

    limits on effective data copyleft

  285. Reduce, Reuse, Reconsider

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

  286. Patent Potato

    the game that never ends

  287. Scratch Other People’s Itches

    achieve more meaning and feel less alone

  288. Copyleft Should be Scary

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

  289. Portland Trip Confirmed

    February 23 to February 29

  290. Open Source Should Come With Warranties

    (from the companies who use it)

  291. CCPA Service Provider Addendum

    plain, minimal form

  292. What did I just agree to?

    Marc Jones on oddities in OSI-approved licenses

  293. Luis Villa’s Licensing Year in Review

    harassment made the list, and should have

  294. Portland in February

    See you there?

  295. Few-Maintainer Projects

    reality-driven expectations

  296. Renaming API Copyleft

    naming for purpose, not implementation

  297. Starting Noncommercial

    famous projects that started noncommercial

  298. API Copyleft 2.0.0-pre.1

    bringing the best of Parity to API Copyleft

  299. Video Footnotes

    one-way video as hackable interactive medium

  300. The Main Event

    Amazon versus Startups and the New York Times

  301. The Doorway NDA

    lawyers earning their stereotypes

  302. Paste Your Terms Into Your E-Mails

    why don’t we do the obvious thing?

  303. Teach Everyone to Be Like Us

    Moxie Marlinspike, wiser than he may have known

  304. git push is the Process

    permissionless license development now

  305. Big Time Public License

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

  306. Rakow 2019

    score one, illegal art people

  307. Correct and Intuitive Fairness

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

  308. I Am Not Advising Legally

    smart people don’t understand lawyers’ disclaimers

  309. A Fistful of Services

    my go-to web applications and utilities

  310. TNR12 and Be There

    learning from others

  311. npm fund

    new subcommand and metadata standard

  312. Talking Points: Ethical Licenses

    collecting points and counterpoints

  313. Reading the WeAllJS Code of Conduct

    line-by-line and off-the-cuff

  314. XML versus JSON

    key quote form a great paper

  315. Universal Share-Alike License

    copyleft across different kinds of work

  316. Venture Capital Shill

    scapegoating free software’s failures

  317. Nomadic Lawyering

    office out, travel in?

  318. MulanPSL

    a new riff on the Apache patent bargain from China

  319. Heather Meeker on “Ethos Licensing”

    free and open is ethos licensing, too

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

    similar licenses, very different receptions

  321. Love this License

    law brut with ASCII art

  322. Blue Oak Guide to Copyleft

    short introduction and license families

  323. Waypoint Trademark

    protecting the integrity of a standard form

  324. CASE Act Flythrough

    notes from a quick read of H.R. 2426

  325. Blue Oak Test Suite

    test cases for new public licenses

  326. Blue Oak Reading List

    reading list for lawyers new to open source

  327. XLC Building Blocks

    essential concepts and vocabulary for cross-license collaboratives

  328. Cross-License Collaboratives

    decentralizing contributor license agreements

  329. Standards, Patents, Open Source

    towards constructive collaboration across practice communities

  330. Blue Oak Guidance on Mergers and Acquisitions

    please stop paying me so much to fix reps and warranties

  331. No LICENSE

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

  332. Our Ethics, Not Yours

    in defense of Seth Vargo and morality-first licenses

  333. The Tyranny of Time

    licensing gives developers much-needed flexibility

  334. Open Core is Not a Good Story

    three better ways to express yourself and your company

  335. Open Legal Podcast?

    considering an open legal podcast

  336. Is this conference a good idea?

    forthcoming talk at a conference

  337. The Great Open Source Shake-Up

    more mandatory reading from Kate Downing

  338. Here Comes the CCPA

    my annotated copy of the statute

  339. Waypoint 2.0.0

    a more adaptable, international standard

  340. Changeblog

    a few thoughts on a friend’s podcast appearance

  341. Require Credit For Your Software

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

  342. Waypoint Abroad

    seeking quick reads from non-US counsel

  343. PANDA for Privacy

    the NDA for your personal information

  344. PolyForm 1.0.0

    standard noncommercial software licenses at last

  345. Heather Meeker on Patent Risk Allocation

    unique compilation of arguments and dynamics

  346. Get In, Get Out

    open source advice for new programmers breaking into the industry

  347. Help Take the Waypoint NDA International

    a call for help from common-law colleagues

  348. Open Letters

    a snail mail experiment

  349. A Twit No More

    farewell, Twitter

  350. Dark Arts at Daybreak

    the end of club rule in open source law

  351. Operating Environment

    essential industry background for reading open software licenses

  352. SSPL Was Not Commons Clause

    how open licensing blew its biggest opportunity of the 2010s

  353. PolyForm Project

    simple, standard, plain-language software licenses

  354. Mortarboard Licenses

    graduate to new public license terms

  355. Schools of Cohesion

    exploring the crosswise policy biases we learn from open software

  356. Prone Blogging Setup

    how to type when the pain puts you on your back

  357. Tyranny of Permissionlessness

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

  358. Don’t Rely on OSI Approval

    activist approval does not track practical needs

  359. AFL-3.0 versus OSL-3.0

    a redline (diff) with important network terms highlighted

  360. The Waypoint NDA

    stop wasting time on NDAs

  361. #wontfix

    endorsements can’t fix the Open Source Definition

  362. Calls to Sustainability Action via package.json

    a new proposal, schema, and tools

  363. Enterprise Ready Open Software License Supplement

    the status quo, plus money for devs

  364. Stairway to Heaven

    repairing broken steps to software license Nirvana

  365. The Diachronic Treadmill License

    automatically reward supporters with copyleft exceptions

  366. License Utopia

    just four licenses for all of open source

  367. Ethical Subcommons Starter Kit

    bringing openness to software of moral concern

  368. Weak or Strong is Wrong

    towards selective or consistent copyleft

  369. Deprecation Notice: MIT and BSD

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

  370. Blue Oak Council

    opening the software commons to everyone

  371. Back to IP

    the copyright giant has a policy

  372. Indie Open Source

    developing resource for indie-ready business models

  373. Open Source Software License Reading List

    a comprehensive curriculum for new license wonks

  374. First Thoughts on the Redis Source Available License Agreement

    evident demand for license rules on API boundaries

  375. API Copyleft License 1.0.0

    first release of API-boundary copyleft form

  376. API Copyleft

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

  377. Critique This License

    developing a standard paid-software license

  378. Shared Component License

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

  379. Outer Source

    open software by closed methods

  380. The Discipline of Stated Purpose

    write out the purposes of legal terms in contracts

  381. Availability Dashboard

    professional availability now online

  382. Apache-2.0 versus ECL-2.0

    a redline (diff) showing substantive changes

  383. Open Source is Not About You

    a minimal, functionalist view of open source

  384. Open Handicaps

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

  385. Selective Openness

    making money by choosing what to give away

  386. The Open Source Definition as Copyleft Regulation

    an in-depth review of commonly cited criteria

  387. The Copyleft Bust Up

    loopholes, licenses, and realpolitik in open source

  388. How to Speak Copyleft

    the missing vocabulary of copyleft design

  389. Elsewhere: Mapping Open Business Models

    crosspost from the License Zero blog

  390. Seeking Comment: Copyright Notice Recommendation

    first stab at a pragmatic best-practice guide

  391. A Canting Tribe Are We

    attacking the NDA problem with standards networks

  392. Indirect Licensing

    dispensing software licenses in the Internet era

  393. Contributor Councils

    relicensing without foundation, BDFL, or unanimity

  394. Motorcycles in the Wind

    do not do or die

  395. Patents for Software Freedom

    gun-shy insurgents and the heavy weapons of IP law

  396. Bilking Angels

    celestial finance for earth-bound developers

  397. Crowd Hiring

    assurance contracts for short-term open software maintenance

  398. Quick Read of Tidelift’s Lifting Agreement

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

  399. Private Changes in Free Software Copyleft Licenses

    Where’s the fifth freedom?

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

    takedown power for DIY developers

  401. Unhappy Coincidences

    marriages of licensing convenience, and changed circumstances

  402. Selective Mythology

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

  403. Attending LegalHackers Summit

  404. The Decentralization Game

    tips for values-forward reformers

  405. The Posterity Public License

    a strong-attribution open source license

  406. Interviewed on Open Source and Money

    TechCrunch article on problems and solutions

  407. Digging Contracts Out of the Hole

    simple tools for drafting to be proud of

  408. California Work Made for Hire Statutes

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

  409. Plain GDPR Processor Addendum

    open form plain-language processor addendum

  410. Plain Terms of Service

    open form terms of service for websites

  411. Proseline

    peer to peer prose editing

  412. Six Great Deals Books

    read these books

  413. Public Domain Chronicle

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

  414. Help Wanted

    kinds of help I could use

  415. Transparent Contract Components

    sharper tools, finer toolmarks

  416. MPL-2.0 versus OPL-2.1

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  417. Lexical Scope for Contracts

    wandering ever closer to LISP

  418. I Have Another Blog

    you may want to subscribe on License Zero, too

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

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  420. CLAs are Not a Sham

    licensing with friends, improved and improving

  421. The Well Appointed Skinner Box

    farewell, Medium

  422. Contract Components

    fine-grained means of abstraction in legal drafting

  423. Debian Free Software Guidelines versus the Open Source Definition

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  424. Mercenary Rapport

    moral blindness in open source on social media

  425. Unsustainability at Scale

    today’s tools for yesterday’s problems tomorrow

  426. Feed this Bear

    indie coder, promote thyself!

  427. Overkill

    doing IP law wrong, and getting away with it

  428. The License Zero Manifesto

    sustainable software in the open

  429. Prescription Contracts

    thinking about direct lawyer guidance on rxnda.com

  430. Null Value

    against demise of the hacker public license

  431. Nobody’s Clients

  432. RxNDA.com

    breaking the NDA logjam

  433. Seven Takeaways from the SEC DAO Report

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

  434. Switchmode Developer Agreement

    an open form contract for open source contractors

  435. Open Software Service Terms

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

  436. It’s Not About Community

    another view of Open Source

  437. Open Source: Theory of Operation

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

  438. Debian 8.7 on Dell Optiplex 7010

  439. Open Source License Business Perception Report

    the pain and confusion of common open licenses, roughly quantified

  440. Against Legislating the Nonobvious

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

  441. The Mendicant Maintainerati

    no holy fools for Open Source

  442. The MIT License, Line by Line

    171 words every programmer should understand

  443. The Earl of Ethereum’s Case

    Who keeps a blockchain’s conscience?

  444. Deal Mechanic

    The writing on the door.

  445. Emancipation by Reference

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

  446. Node.js Streams

    fundamental abstractions reviewed and revisited

  447. IP Field Guide

    publicly licensed, publicly available intro for non-lawyers

  448. The JavaScript Joke Was on Me

    or, a few things learned the hard way

  449. Circulation Policy

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

  450. Annotations in Context

    A first attempt at useful, responsible Common Form annotations

  451. 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.

  452. License from Who?

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

  453. The Triplebyte Plan

    The tangled web of one start-up equity plan

  454. The Berneout Pledge

    Sucks less than CLAs!

  455. First Read: The Fair Source License

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

  456. I’ll Never Be a Super Lawyer

    In feigned ignorance there is no grace.

  457. Startup Unix

    An open legal operating system for start-up technology companies

  458. What Enumeration Means

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

  459. Template Ambiguity

    Document assembly can make ambiguity even harder to spot.

  460. The Blanks Problem

    A tough Common Form design decision explained.

  461. Term Injection

    Fighting insertion of unexpected terms in automated form contracts

  462. React Patent Redline

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

  463. Certificated Assent

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

  464. Hacking Common Form

    Overview of existing Common Form software for programmers

  465. Terms of Service; Already Read

    Verifiable contracts should help consumers, too.

  466. Reproduction of Hierarchy

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

  467. Index Card Contracts

    Common Form for paper people

  468. Grab-Bag Contracts

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

  469. Named Provisions

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

  470. vesting.js

    From code to law and back again

  471. Blind Patches

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

  472. Modularity is not the Law

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

  473. The Halliburton Hypothesis

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

  474. Value Statement

    as found at the feet of my bills

  475. FTC 2014 Year in Review

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

  476. Common Form

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

  477. 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

  478. 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.