Open Source
15 July 2020
A Modest Trademark Proposal
banish them from permissive open source
03 July 2020
Programmer Power
prying open “software freedom”
12 June 2020
Anything to Everyone
“defund the police” through the lens of “open source”
11 June 2020
Narrative Error
that’s my hero story, and I’m sticking to it
10 June 2020
Free & Open Picture Book
a conundrum in four panels
01 June 2020
Round Robin 1.0.0
ready for the field
26 May 2020
Round Robin License
new name, new terms, same great idea
11 May 2020
“Open Source” Is Nobody’s Property
if OSI owned it, they wouldn’t be so touchy about it
02 May 2020
Antidote
critical and alternative views on free and open source software
20 April 2020
Common-Pool Pushovers
Elinor Ostrom without boundaries
17 April 2020
Locked-In Customers Anonymous
stop buying software from assholes
17 April 2020
Site of Shame
if you can’t negotiate, castigate?
04 April 2020
Sharetribe Community Public License 1.0, Line by Line
another everything-but-SaaS license
01 April 2020
CERN OHL-S 2.0, Line by Line
the open share-alike hardware license we actually need now?
31 March 2020
Medtronic’s PB560 Ventilator License, Line by Line
medical device company devises copyleft license
28 March 2020
Open Source for Business 3e
new edition of an oft-recommended book
27 March 2020
Sustain Podcast
business models, licenses, role playing
12 March 2020
Name Calling Isn’t Precise
“neo-closed” will come and go
07 March 2020
Copyleft Has No Posse
war is over, want it or not
27 February 2020
This Mess We’re In
ethics, open source, and free riding
10 February 2020
Data Under Universal Share-Alike
limits on effective data copyleft
09 February 2020
Reduce, Reuse, Reconsider
if you wish to make a great hacker from scratch, let them reimplement the universe
03 February 2020
Scratch Other People’s Itches
achieve more meaning and feel less alone
02 February 2020
Copyleft Should be Scary
if the virus wasn’t scary, would we wash out hands?
27 January 2020
Open Source Should Come With Warranties
(from the companies who use it)
23 January 2020
What did I just agree to?
Marc Jones on oddities in OSI-approved licenses
23 January 2020
Luis Villa’s Licensing Year in Review
harassment made the list, and should have
14 January 2020
Few-Maintainer Projects
reality-driven expectations
13 January 2020
Renaming API Copyleft
naming for purpose, not implementation
07 January 2020
API Copyleft 2.0.0-pre.1
bringing the best of Parity to API Copyleft
16 December 2019
The Main Event
Amazon versus Startups and the New York Times
26 November 2019
npm fund
new subcommand and metadata standard
24 November 2019
Talking Points: Ethical Licenses
collecting points and counterpoints
17 November 2019
Venture Capital Shill
scapegoating free software’s failures
10 November 2019
MulanPSL
a new riff on the Apache patent bargain from China
09 November 2019
Heather Meeker on “Ethos Licensing”
free and open is ethos licensing, too
07 November 2019
“BSD with PATENTS” and “BSD-2-Clause Plus Patent” are Not the Same
similar licenses, very different receptions
06 November 2019
Love this License
law brut with ASCII art
16 October 2019
Blue Oak Test Suite
test cases for new public licenses
16 October 2019
Blue Oak Reading List
reading list for lawyers new to open source
05 October 2019
Cross-License Collaboratives
decentralizing contributor license agreements
03 October 2019
Standards, Patents, Open Source
towards constructive collaboration across practice communities
03 October 2019
Blue Oak Guidance on Mergers and Acquisitions
please stop paying me so much to fix reps and warranties
28 September 2019
No LICENSE
they won’t see your funding plea if they never look
28 September 2019
Our Ethics, Not Yours
in defense of Seth Vargo and morality-first licenses
26 September 2019
The Tyranny of Time
licensing gives developers much-needed flexibility
25 September 2019
Open Core is Not a Good Story
three better ways to express yourself and your company
10 September 2019
Open Legal Podcast?
considering an open legal podcast
09 September 2019
Is this conference a good idea?
forthcoming talk at a conference
09 September 2019
The Great Open Source Shake-Up
more mandatory reading from Kate Downing
05 September 2019
Changeblog
a few thoughts on a friend’s podcast appearance
15 August 2019
Require Credit For Your Software
a general-purpose legal tool to require credit for open work
25 June 2019
Get In, Get Out
open source advice for new programmers breaking into the industry
17 June 2019
Dark Arts at Daybreak
the end of club rule in open source law
15 June 2019
Operating Environment
essential industry background for reading open software licenses
13 June 2019
SSPL Was Not Commons Clause
how open licensing blew its biggest opportunity of the 2010s
21 May 2019
Mortarboard Licenses
graduate to new public license terms
18 May 2019
Schools of Cohesion
exploring the crosswise policy biases we learn from open software
08 May 2019
Tyranny of Permissionlessness
open source’s narrow focus further empowers those with other ways to exclude
05 May 2019
Don’t Rely on OSI Approval
activist approval does not track practical needs
29 April 2019
AFL-3.0 versus OSL-3.0
a redline (diff) with important network terms highlighted
23 April 2019
#wontfix
endorsements can’t fix the Open Source Definition
12 April 2019
Calls to Sustainability Action via package.json
a new proposal, schema, and tools
11 April 2019
Enterprise Ready Open Software License Supplement
the status quo, plus money for devs
06 April 2019
Stairway to Heaven
repairing broken steps to software license Nirvana
18 March 2019
The Diachronic Treadmill License
automatically reward supporters with copyleft exceptions
17 March 2019
License Utopia
just four licenses for all of open source
15 March 2019
Ethical Subcommons Starter Kit
bringing openness to software of moral concern
11 March 2019
Weak or Strong is Wrong
towards selective or consistent copyleft
09 March 2019
Deprecation Notice: MIT and BSD
it’s time to retire thirty-year-old academic licenses
04 March 2019
Back to IP
the copyright giant has a policy
25 February 2019
Indie Open Source
developing resource for indie-ready business models
24 February 2019
Open Source Software License Reading List
a comprehensive curriculum for new license wonks
22 February 2019
First Thoughts on the Redis Source Available License Agreement
evident demand for license rules on API boundaries
22 February 2019
API Copyleft License 1.0.0
first release of API-boundary copyleft form
30 January 2019
API Copyleft
functionality, interfaces, and line drawing in a new copyleft paradigm
12 January 2019
Shared Component License
first shot at a short, plain license in the vein of Mongo’s SSPL
12 January 2019
Outer Source
open software by closed methods
18 December 2018
Apache-2.0 versus ECL-2.0
a redline (diff) showing substantive changes
05 December 2018
Open Source is Not About You
a minimal, functionalist view of open source
04 December 2018
Open Handicaps
Did permissive used to advantage open work like copyleft does today?
12 November 2018
Selective Openness
making money by choosing what to give away
05 November 2018
The Open Source Definition as Copyleft Regulation
an in-depth review of commonly cited criteria
04 November 2018
The Copyleft Bust Up
loopholes, licenses, and realpolitik in open source
24 October 2018
How to Speak Copyleft
the missing vocabulary of copyleft design
17 October 2018
Elsewhere: Mapping Open Business Models
crosspost from the License Zero blog
07 October 2018
Seeking Comment: Copyright Notice Recommendation
first stab at a pragmatic best-practice guide
01 October 2018
Indirect Licensing
dispensing software licenses in the Internet era
30 September 2018
Contributor Councils
relicensing without foundation, BDFL, or unanimity
23 September 2018
Patents for Software Freedom
gun-shy insurgents and the heavy weapons of IP law
22 September 2018
Bilking Angels
celestial finance for earth-bound developers
21 September 2018
Crowd Hiring
assurance contracts for short-term open software maintenance
18 September 2018
Quick Read of Tidelift’s Lifting Agreement
nits picked in the developer terms for a new pay-the-devs company
17 September 2018
Private Changes in Free Software Copyleft Licenses
Where’s the fifth freedom?
02 September 2018
Enforce Open Source Licenses with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
takedown power for DIY developers
28 August 2018
Unhappy Coincidences
marriages of licensing convenience, and changed circumstances
23 August 2018
Selective Mythology
defining open source for fun and profit, in the shadow of the enterprise
12 July 2018
The Posterity Public License
a strong-attribution open source license
15 January 2018
MPL-2.0 versus OPL-2.1
a redline (diff) showing changes
09 January 2018
I Have Another Blog
you may want to subscribe on License Zero, too
09 January 2018
Licence Libre du Québec – Réciprocité versus - Réciprocité forte
a redline (diff) showing changes
06 January 2018
CLAs are Not a Sham
licensing with friends, improved and improving
12 November 2017
Debian Free Software Guidelines versus the Open Source Definition
a redline (diff) showing changes
16 October 2017
Mercenary Rapport
moral blindness in open source as social media
15 October 2017
Unsustainability at Scale
today’s tools for yesterday’s problems tomorrow
09 October 2017
Feed this Bear
indie coder, promote thyself!
26 September 2017
Overkill
doing IP law wrong, and getting away with it
12 September 2017
The License Zero Manifesto
sustainable software in the open
31 August 2017
Null Value
against demise of the hacker public license
09 June 2017
Switchmode Developer Agreement
an open form contract for open source contractors
06 June 2017
Open Software Service Terms
legal terms for paid web apps, now available in the English language
04 June 2017
It’s Not About Community
another view of Open Source
26 May 2017
Open Source: Theory of Operation
a short, practical guide to open source software for programmers at work
29 March 2017
Open Source License Business Perception Report
the pain and confusion of common open licenses, roughly quantified
16 February 2017
Against Legislating the Nonobvious
short-order feedback on the default contributor license in GitHub’s draft terms of service
10 February 2017
The Mendicant Maintainerati
no holy fools for Open Source
21 September 2016
The MIT License, Line by Line
171 words every programmer should understand
13 May 2016
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.
13 May 2016
License from Who?
Safe open-source licensing means more than a LICENSE file.
18 April 2016
The Berneout Pledge
Sucks less than CLAs!
30 March 2016
First Read: The Fair Source License
Text and my first thoughts on a new, non-open source form license
23 February 2016
Startup Unix
An open legal operating system for start-up technology companies
25 September 2015
React Patent Redline
Changes to Facebook’s patent grant for React, Flux, Immutable, &c.
22 May 2015
Blind Patches
What if open-source contributors could submit patches anonymously and choose to claim credit later?