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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. Open Source When We Say So

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

  2. Open Source Company as Costco

    parallels weak and strong

  3. Negotiating Bastardry

    unexpected wisdom from a motorcycle channel

  4. Llama 3 versus LLama 3.1 License Terms

    handy redline and takeaways

  5. Not The Same Security Debate

    open source security today is different in kind

  6. Pick-From-a-List Tools

    my favorite heretical UNIX programs

  7. Blue Oak Contributor License

    it’s just a license

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

  9. Copyleft Intolerance and the Defining-Open Mind Trap

    forgetting licensing history past, we fail to repeat our successes

  10. Unlimited Indemnity for Unpaid Developers?

    James Bottomley on liability, politics, and forgotten boilerplate

  11. Support the Blue Oak License List

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

  12. PolyForm Countdown

    a simple, solid form for changing your license later

  13. Toward PolyForm Shield Version 2

    streamline and revise for easier reading

  14. A Short, Simple Template for Scheduled Relicensing

    decouple license rules from how we relax them

  15. Amazon Has a Restricted License, Too

    this is not a bad thing

  16. We Were Wrong About the GPLs

    an unsurprising admission in Conservancy v. Vizio

  17. Understanding “RISC-y Business”

    trading chips progression for chips advantage

  18. Recommended Resource: CRS Congressional Court Watcher

    free briefs of new cases

  19. Two Kinds of “Relicensing”

    going-forward and retroactive

  20. Two Kinds of “Dual Licensing”

    a license operator and a business model

  21. Overloaded

    putting finer points on established fuzzy terms

  22. Real and Imagined CLA Overreach

    CLAs go wrong when they act like hiring terms

  23. Exactly the Wrong AI Copyrightability Case

    Creativity Machine guy assumed away the debate and lost

  24. HashiCorp’s New Licensing

    a new benchmark for presenting license change

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

    fear, uncertainty, and doubt upon ethical licenses

  26. No Office Hours

    Internet down hard

  27. Utah Social Media Regulation Act

    two new laws on social media and children

  28. You Do Not Have a Shoe Size

    thirty-five years standing over a bad assumption

  29. On-Cloud Licensing

    the wheel of software delivery keeps on turning

  30. NVIDIA Prismer License

    another noncommercial model license, kind of

  31. Open Source Unsolved Security

    the pointy-headed corpo-types warned us

  32. Wikimedia’s Terms of Use

    thoughts from a recent review

  33. European Office Hours

    more scheduled for next month

  34. The Law Does Not Require Legalese

    a reassuring dive into contract interpretation

  35. Sneaking Things In

    yes, lawyers actually do this

  36. Open RAIL-M Is More Unclear Than Scary

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

  37. Open Game License Version 1.2 Draft

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

  38. Office Hours

    call in and ask me questions

  39. Type Error: “Democratizing”

    runaway sales speak hits the curb again

  40. Delayed Release in Investigative Reporting

    newsroom licensing strategy in familiar software terms

  41. This Rich To Open Source

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

  42. MicroHub Sponsorplace

    one software store, many corporate faces

  43. Open Market for Open Software

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

  44. Notice by Hyperlink

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

  45. Waypoint NDA 4.0.0

    now with mergers and acquisitions terms

  46. Putting Software in the Public Domain

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

  47. Trademark Undefined Behavior

    the awkward hole in free and open IP

  48. Thoughts on Web Footnotes

    links, notes, asides, details, and parentheticals

  49. Briefless Barristers and Lawyerless Clients

    future Supreme Court justice to young lawyers in 1939

  50. Time Off Summer ’22

    out of office August 7 through 20

  51. New Microsoft Word Comments Weirdness

    a gotcha for legal power users

  52. Legal Sources for Not-a-Lawyers

    learn some law without totally warping your brain

  53. Priest Against Priesthood

    father of FORTRAN on programming in the fifties

  54. The Work, the Tech, and the Crime

    blockchain deserves no regulatory favors

  55. Text Prudent

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

  56. Max Korzh’s “His Home”

    a Russian-language rap translation

  57. Legal Versioning

    refined scheme for functional prose projects

  58. From Copy to Reference

    a plan to evolve legal drafting

  59. Zelensky Compound NDA

    the mystery of the ritual runs deeper than law

  60. Copy-and-Paste Goes to Russia

    lawyering by rote in the crazy 1990s

  61. EULAs Aren’t Inherently Evil

    proprietary done right can beat free and open for users

  62. HTML Scripting Tools

    a few free packages I’ve come to use

  63. The Russians Are Coming

    hire the nerds for peace, profit, and progress!

  64. FOSS Fundraiser for Ukraine?

    donors ask questions, panel of licensing lawyers answers

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

    everywhere it looks, OSI sees itself, and in triumph

  66. Getting the Most From Common Computer Filing Systems

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

  67. Russia’s “Fake News” Law

    a quick translation

  68. Switching Open Software Terms

    yes, you can switch from MIT to something else

  69. You And Whose GitHub?

    Russian tech source reports state mulling GitHub clone

  70. What Must Be Said

    Boris Grebenshchikov in London

  71. Russia to Legalize Software Piracy

    my show is canceled, business news reports

  72. Ukraine

    donate money against this horrible war

  73. Devs Use Closed Software

    too many devs pretend otherwise

  74. Universal Basic Cop-Out

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

  75. Software Pay Data 2020

    data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

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

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

  77. Big Time Public License 2.0.0

    much improved by generous feedback

  78. Second Draft of Waypoint for M&A

    refining acquisition-specific terms to the standard business NDA

  79. Fast Path

    cutting-edge legal terms for software license sales

  80. MIT for Noncommercial is Broken

    use a real noncommercial software license

  81. Payability, Form, and Substance

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

  82. To-Do List Polling

    event-based meatspace task management

  83. Pay the Fiddler

    pithy wisdom from days of yore

  84. Square One 2e1u

    addressing an interesting Utah peculiarity

  85. AWS Contributor Licensing Blurb

    another mutation from the cauldron of CLA angst

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

    seeking help naming a concept

  87. Waypoint for M&A

    adding acquisition-specific terms to the standard business NDA

  88. Correlation and Causation Symbols

    good shorthand against bad mental shortcuts

  89. Single CLA

    taking back contributor licensing for developers

  90. SaaS Compliance Caveats

    view page source ain’t what it used to be

  91. Blue Oak Open Software Licensing Primer

    Theory of Operation, updated and expanded

  92. Not My Law

    explainer page for cross-border legal help

  93. Specifically Regulating Standardized Contracting

    quick thoughts on the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016

  94. All Heroes, No Casualties

    where are our stories of tech folks done wrong?

  95. The Kingsway Basic License

    hip hop terms through a software lens

  96. Hydrant Meter for the Homeless

    a giant step forward for East Oakland Collective and EBMUD

  97. Redlining in Microsoft Word 365

    a step-by-step guide to comparing legal drafts

  98. Square One Second Edition

    improved US hiring forms and terms

  99. GPL Had Better be a Contract

    SFC’s Vizio suit brings the right kind of claim

  100. PolyForm Commercial Does Individual Licenses Now

    expanding standardization to single-user deals

  101. Pinky Pressing Problem

    discovering and addressing a lapse in typing technique

  102. Signature Blocks 101

    what goes where and why, in brief

  103. L. Peter Deutsch and Stig Hackvän

    cooperation, licensing, and money in 1998

  104. Time Off Summer ’21

    out of office August 29 through September 8

  105. Help Fund Water for the Homeless

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

  106. Upgrading to Debian Bullseye

    a couple hurdles jumped

  107. Contract by E-Mail

    contract power is in your hands

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

    dispelling magical DCO thinking to reveal the system below

  109. Standardize Commercial Software Licensing

    announcing PolyForm Commercial, with a call for help

  110. License Round-Up

    listing licenses I’ve contributed to

  111. Waypoint NDA 3.0.0

    small terms fixes, big presentation improvements

  112. In Praise of Cron

    seventies-era automation for the working lawyer

  113. Big Time Public License 1.0.0

    a FRAND-ly license for software

  114. Legal Explainer Sites

    one-page URLs for common concepts and conundrums

  115. 2020 Oakland Homeless Camp Fires

    data from public records request

  116. Creative Commons’ 2021-2025 Strategy

    a scene stalwart turns “ethical”

  117. The Guestbook NDA

    a standard one-way nondisclosure agreement

  118. 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report

    bold text from the key findings

  119. One-Way NDA

    good names for the next standard NDA?

  120. Citation Hustle

    hooking into academe for fair code credit

  121. Drafter’s Anxiety

    writing new licenses isn’t scary

  122. The Luck of Open Source

    open source without great men

  123. Legal Technology as Regulatory Arbitrage

    a countervailing force toward specialization

  124. Efficient Merit Apocalypse

    a mirror on meritocracy

  125. Sell Babel 8

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

  126. Law Insider’s Contract Teardowns

    lawyers dissect specific contract language

  127. Days of Pain

    returning from a double bout of nerve pain

  128. Open Gaming Deja Vu

    a clear-eyed view of open from 1999

  129. First-Rate Intelligence

    false comfort in U.S. military spending

  130. Support Funding for Cali County Law Libraries

    they’re even more important during pandemic

  131. You Can Still Use the Software

    Justin Colannino on what’s up with new software licenses

  132. Zebra G-750 First Look

    a long-awaited pen arrives on US shores

  133. Flat Forms

    plain language should come in plain pieces

  134. Templating for Lawyers

    learn computer templateering in five minutes flat

  135. Seven Ways to Say “Inequality”

    a short study in the rhetoric of policy

  136. It’s a Trap

    avoid legal structures designed to constrain you

  137. The Origin of the “MIT License”

    how did those famous terms come about?

  138. Cross License Foundations

    decentralized stewardship of collaborative projects

  139. Code Credit License 1.0.0

    a code-for-credit software license

  140. Open Licensing Attacks on Specific Business Models

    an incomplete list

  141. Compliance Industrial Pulpit

    someone tell the enterprise about Open Source 2.0

  142. Where are the Goalposts?

    in response to Luis Villa on SSPL and OSI

  143. The Chalkeaters’ License

    effective folk licensing in the wild

  144. Waypoint Turns Two

    stop wasting time on nondisclosure agreements

  145. Platform Neutrality

    we used to have a principle for this

  146. Square One

    fair terms. free forms. back to work.

  147. Reading AGPL

    a guided introduction for first-timers

  148. Open Source is Discrimination

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

  149. Righteous, Expedient, Wrong

    OSI swings at Elastic, misses, and leaves a mess

  150. Water Manifolds

    hydrant-based access for the homeless of the Tenderloin

  151. ml5.js Takes a Stand

    a code of conduct with teeth, in the wild

  152. We Are All Internet Realists Now

    web exceptionalism swings both ways

  153. Fake Neutrality

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

  154. The Tension

    panning for hope in a very angry America

  155. Printing Booklets

    less paper, easier reading

  156. No War on Coronavirus

    remembering the other way to see our problems

  157. Lies My Law School Told Me

    in praise of bad propaganda

  158. Don’t Pitch Lawyers

    pitch clients

  159. Deprogramming the Programmer

    throw off your jargon and be free

  160. Authority and Expertise

    digging up the land mines of attorney-client relations

  161. Survive America

    prepping for the obvious

  162. The Future of the Internet

    thanks for letting us know

  163. The War on License Notices

    managing uncertainty at the fringes of open licensing

  164. Don’t Sign Blank Checks

    a problem of pattern recognition

  165. Judicial Website, No Money Down

    sustainability, government style

  166. Water Team on The Oaklandside

    local news org covers water access proposals

  167. Electric, Light, Organized

    flameless light and power stopgaps for the homeless

  168. EBMUD for All

    open letter for homeless access to water

  169. Work Made for Hire … or Not

    one source of complexity in intellectual property terms

  170. Let’s Not All Read Terms of Service

    common quips on website terms miss the point

  171. You Have to Build a Time Machine

    Eventbrite falls into the terms of service trap

  172. How Congress Sees Open Source

    a view from outside

  173. Signing by E-Mail

    a writing is a writing is a writing

  174. Speedier Git for Text File Tracking

    streamlining for small, fast commits to personal records

  175. Doormat 1e

    free no-log, no-track privacy policy

  176. DMCASimple 1e

    another new first edition and website

  177. Turnstile 1e

    first edition and new website

  178. Copyright Notices Begone

    pointless costs of ancient licenses

  179. From Justice With Love

    the antitrust division groks open source strategy

  180. Communes to Cooperatives

    musings of a Drop City scholar

  181. Public Domain Appendix

    public license for From Dictatorship to Democracy

  182. Mix Many Metaphors

    analogies galore in Oracle v. Google oral argument

  183. Oracle v. Google Oral Argument

    major league copyright lawyering at bat

  184. The Ethical Consequences of Our Collective Activities

    professional ethics as the missing root of entitlement?

  185. California Welfare and Institutions Code 17000

    on the books since 1965

  186. Son of Water Boy

    latest lessons and tips

  187. Security Services Terms

    giving a specialized field its due

  188. Types of Lawyers

    major food groups for clients

  189. Amateur Open Econ Toolkit

    compendium of concepts, theories, and theorists

  190. Not the Type

    tech exceptionalism in limp words and phrases

  191. Working in Public

    now comes the coder-celebrity

  192. Connecticut’s Police Bill

    first-read highlights

  193. Water Boy

    working up a playbook for supplying urban campers

  194. A Modest Trademark Proposal

    banish them from permissive open source

  195. In Praise of Juanito Rus

    recognizing professionalism in local public service

  196. Colorado’s Police Reform Law

    first-read highlights

  197. Expert Failure

    lawyers learning from scientists

  198. Programmer Power

    prying open “software freedom”

  199. Threat Rhetoric

    narrative error in policing

  200. Police Qualified Immunity Reading

    recommended overview and primary sources

  201. No Justice

    facing the mirror in a time of inequality

  202. PolyForm Defensive is Now PolyForm Shield

    feedback strikes again

  203. Anything to Everyone

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

  204. Narrative Error

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

  205. Acceptable Use

    different delivery, same rules

  206. Facing the Choir

    reading and hearing American police unions

  207. Free & Open Picture Book

    a conundrum in four panels

  208. Normally Open & Normally Closed

    simple templates for restricted terms

  209. Oakland Police Commission

    money, gas, rubber, and “fuck”

  210. DMSimple

    plain and simple DMCA safe harbor terms

  211. The March in Oakland

    a flyover, firsthand account of rally and march

  212. Round Robin 1.0.0

    ready for the field

  213. Round Robin License

    new name, new terms, same great idea

  214. Protestant Work Product

    recognizing overwork in the field

  215. Turnstile

    springboard website terms of service

  216. Progressive Standardization

    standardized contracting can also be flexible

  217. PolyForm Noncompete Licenses

    two new, long-awaited forms

  218. Springboard Agreements

    putting a name to a tool

  219. Lawyerization

    vocabulary for lawyer involvement and influence

  220. “Open Source” Is Nobody’s Property

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

  221. Two Tiny Web Apps

    long-serving micro-groupware

  222. Name this Contract Type

    agreements incorporating all their terms by reference

  223. Allowable Tolerances

    law can learn a lot from the trades

  224. Antidote

    critical and alternative views on free and open source software

  225. Pay-Per-Law, Inc.

    the glory and agony of Georgia v. Public Resource

  226. Neighbor Meals

    ground game for safer group takeout

  227. redline.commonform.org

    compare Common Form markup online

  228. Common-Pool Pushovers

    Elinor Ostrom without boundaries

  229. edit.commonform.org

    try Common Form’s editing tools online

  230. Common Form, Simplified

    publish, share, save our souls

  231. Locked-In Customers Anonymous

    stop buying software from assholes

  232. No Thanks

    software freedom without programmers

  233. Site of Shame

    if you can’t negotiate, castigate?

  234. The Tote Bag

    remembering the Great Recession

  235. Do Not Track or Do Not Sell

    conflict or convenience?

  236. Open COVID Pledge

    public licensing for pandemic response

  237. Noncompete By Two Other Names

    Why are the last PolyForm licenses taking so long?

  238. Sharetribe Community Public License 1.0, Line by Line

    another everything-but-SaaS license

  239. Intelligent Perception

    low bow to the legal laity

  240. Take the Money and Run

    if you’re not hurting, try helping

  241. CERN OHL-S 2.0, Line by Line

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

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

    formatted, linked, and linkable

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

    medical device company devises copyleft license

  244. Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment

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

  245. Against Legal Technology

    beyond the latest office software

  246. Open Source for Business 3e

    new edition of an oft-recommended book

  247. Subscribe by E-Mail

    another way to see new posts

  248. Sustain Podcast

    business models, licenses, role playing

  249. Not Those Dreams

    Nintendo purges Mario from Dreams

  250. California Medical Directives at Home

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

  251. Medical Advance Directives Working Group

    looking for lawyers, translators, and editors

  252. notlegaladvice.law

    shareable explainer page

  253. Blue Is Blue

    a strange thing about learned language

  254. World Tour Canceled

    mouse best plans, but what ado now?

  255. Name Calling Isn’t Precise

    “neo-closed” will come and go

  256. Terms of Service, Take Two

    shorter, higher-level, more fun

  257. Foreign Virus

    another good excuse to order in Chinese

  258. Terms of Service, Take One

    reviewing the terms you’ve already agreed to

  259. Copyleft Has No Posse

    war is over, want it or not

  260. Short Spiel on Legal Tech

    law’s retrograde rep is more about tech than law

  261. Dreams Creates a Commons?

    a video game for making video games

  262. Not Not Political

    if software matters, it’s already political

  263. This Mess We’re In

    ethics, open source, and free riding

  264. Skimming Hippocratic License Version 2.0

    text and quick thoughts

  265. Untangling Tech Merit and Tech Privilege

    section 230 is but one kind of subsidy

  266. More Accessible

    small tweaks to better accommodate readers

  267. Data Under Universal Share-Alike

    limits on effective data copyleft

  268. Reduce, Reuse, Reconsider

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

  269. Patent Potato

    the game that never ends

  270. Scratch Other People’s Itches

    achieve more meaning and feel less alone

  271. Copyleft Should be Scary

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

  272. Portland Trip Confirmed

    February 23 to February 29

  273. Open Source Should Come With Warranties

    (from the companies who use it)

  274. CCPA Service Provider Addendum

    plain, minimal form

  275. What did I just agree to?

    Marc Jones on oddities in OSI-approved licenses

  276. Luis Villa’s Licensing Year in Review

    harassment made the list, and should have

  277. Portland in February

    See you there?

  278. Few-Maintainer Projects

    reality-driven expectations

  279. Renaming API Copyleft

    naming for purpose, not implementation

  280. Starting Noncommercial

    famous projects that started noncommercial

  281. API Copyleft 2.0.0-pre.1

    bringing the best of Parity to API Copyleft

  282. Video Footnotes

    one-way video as hackable interactive medium

  283. The Main Event

    Amazon versus Startups and the New York Times

  284. The Doorway NDA

    lawyers earning their stereotypes

  285. Paste Your Terms Into Your E-Mails

    why don’t we do the obvious thing?

  286. Teach Everyone to Be Like Us

    Moxie Marlinspike, wiser than he may have known

  287. git push is the Process

    permissionless license development now

  288. Big Time Public License

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

  289. Rakow 2019

    score one, illegal art people

  290. Correct and Intuitive Fairness

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

  291. I Am Not Advising Legally

    smart people don’t understand lawyers’ disclaimers

  292. A Fistful of Services

    my go-to web applications and utilities

  293. TNR12 and Be There

    learning from others

  294. npm fund

    new subcommand and metadata standard

  295. Talking Points: Ethical Licenses

    collecting points and counterpoints

  296. Reading the WeAllJS Code of Conduct

    line-by-line and off-the-cuff

  297. XML versus JSON

    key quote form a great paper

  298. Universal Share-Alike License

    copyleft across different kinds of work

  299. Venture Capital Shill

    scapegoating free software’s failures

  300. Nomadic Lawyering

    office out, travel in?

  301. MulanPSL

    a new riff on the Apache patent bargain from China

  302. Heather Meeker on “Ethos Licensing”

    free and open is ethos licensing, too

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

    similar licenses, very different receptions

  304. Love this License

    law brut with ASCII art

  305. Blue Oak Guide to Copyleft

    short introduction and license families

  306. Waypoint Trademark

    protecting the integrity of a standard form

  307. CASE Act Flythrough

    notes from a quick read of H.R. 2426

  308. Blue Oak Test Suite

    test cases for new public licenses

  309. Blue Oak Reading List

    reading list for lawyers new to open source

  310. XLC Building Blocks

    essential concepts and vocabulary for cross-license collaboratives

  311. Cross-License Collaboratives

    decentralizing contributor license agreements

  312. Standards, Patents, Open Source

    towards constructive collaboration across practice communities

  313. Blue Oak Guidance on Mergers and Acquisitions

    please stop paying me so much to fix reps and warranties

  314. No LICENSE

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

  315. Our Ethics, Not Yours

    in defense of Seth Vargo and morality-first licenses

  316. The Tyranny of Time

    licensing gives developers much-needed flexibility

  317. Open Core is Not a Good Story

    three better ways to express yourself and your company

  318. Open Legal Podcast?

    considering an open legal podcast

  319. Is this conference a good idea?

    forthcoming talk at a conference

  320. The Great Open Source Shake-Up

    more mandatory reading from Kate Downing

  321. Here Comes the CCPA

    my annotated copy of the statute

  322. Waypoint 2.0.0

    a more adaptable, international standard

  323. Changeblog

    a few thoughts on a friend’s podcast appearance

  324. Require Credit For Your Software

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

  325. Waypoint Abroad

    seeking quick reads from non-US counsel

  326. PANDA for Privacy

    the NDA for your personal information

  327. PolyForm 1.0.0

    standard noncommercial software licenses at last

  328. Heather Meeker on Patent Risk Allocation

    unique compilation of arguments and dynamics

  329. Get In, Get Out

    open source advice for new programmers breaking into the industry

  330. Help Take the Waypoint NDA International

    a call for help from common-law colleagues

  331. Open Letters

    a snail mail experiment

  332. A Twit No More

    farewell, Twitter

  333. Dark Arts at Daybreak

    the end of club rule in open source law

  334. Operating Environment

    essential industry background for reading open software licenses

  335. SSPL Was Not Commons Clause

    how open licensing blew its biggest opportunity of the 2010s

  336. PolyForm Project

    simple, standard, plain-language software licenses

  337. Mortarboard Licenses

    graduate to new public license terms

  338. Schools of Cohesion

    exploring the crosswise policy biases we learn from open software

  339. Prone Blogging Setup

    how to type when the pain puts you on your back

  340. Tyranny of Permissionlessness

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

  341. Don’t Rely on OSI Approval

    activist approval does not track practical needs

  342. AFL-3.0 versus OSL-3.0

    a redline (diff) with important network terms highlighted

  343. The Waypoint NDA

    stop wasting time on NDAs

  344. #wontfix

    endorsements can’t fix the Open Source Definition

  345. Calls to Sustainability Action via package.json

    a new proposal, schema, and tools

  346. Enterprise Ready Open Software License Supplement

    the status quo, plus money for devs

  347. Stairway to Heaven

    repairing broken steps to software license Nirvana

  348. The Diachronic Treadmill License

    automatically reward supporters with copyleft exceptions

  349. License Utopia

    just four licenses for all of open source

  350. Ethical Subcommons Starter Kit

    bringing openness to software of moral concern

  351. Weak or Strong is Wrong

    towards selective or consistent copyleft

  352. Deprecation Notice: MIT and BSD

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

  353. Blue Oak Council

    opening the software commons to everyone

  354. Back to IP

    the copyright giant has a policy

  355. Indie Open Source

    developing resource for indie-ready business models

  356. Open Source Software License Reading List

    a comprehensive curriculum for new license wonks

  357. First Thoughts on the Redis Source Available License Agreement

    evident demand for license rules on API boundaries

  358. API Copyleft License 1.0.0

    first release of API-boundary copyleft form

  359. API Copyleft

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

  360. Critique This License

    developing a standard paid-software license

  361. Shared Component License

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

  362. Outer Source

    open software by closed methods

  363. The Discipline of Stated Purpose

    write out the purposes of legal terms in contracts

  364. Availability Dashboard

    professional availability now online

  365. Apache-2.0 versus ECL-2.0

    a redline (diff) showing substantive changes

  366. Open Source is Not About You

    a minimal, functionalist view of open source

  367. Open Handicaps

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

  368. Selective Openness

    making money by choosing what to give away

  369. The Open Source Definition as Copyleft Regulation

    an in-depth review of commonly cited criteria

  370. The Copyleft Bust Up

    loopholes, licenses, and realpolitik in open source

  371. How to Speak Copyleft

    the missing vocabulary of copyleft design

  372. Elsewhere: Mapping Open Business Models

    crosspost from the License Zero blog

  373. Seeking Comment: Copyright Notice Recommendation

    first stab at a pragmatic best-practice guide

  374. A Canting Tribe Are We

    attacking the NDA problem with standards networks

  375. Indirect Licensing

    dispensing software licenses in the Internet era

  376. Contributor Councils

    relicensing without foundation, BDFL, or unanimity

  377. Motorcycles in the Wind

    do not do or die

  378. Patents for Software Freedom

    gun-shy insurgents and the heavy weapons of IP law

  379. Bilking Angels

    celestial finance for earth-bound developers

  380. Crowd Hiring

    assurance contracts for short-term open software maintenance

  381. Quick Read of Tidelift’s Lifting Agreement

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

  382. Private Changes in Free Software Copyleft Licenses

    Where’s the fifth freedom?

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

    takedown power for DIY developers

  384. Unhappy Coincidences

    marriages of licensing convenience, and changed circumstances

  385. Selective Mythology

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

  386. Attending LegalHackers Summit

  387. The Decentralization Game

    tips for values-forward reformers

  388. The Posterity Public License

    a strong-attribution open source license

  389. Interviewed on Open Source and Money

    TechCrunch article on problems and solutions

  390. Digging Contracts Out of the Hole

    simple tools for drafting to be proud of

  391. California Work Made for Hire Statutes

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

  392. Plain GDPR Processor Addendum

    open form plain-language processor addendum

  393. Plain Terms of Service

    open form terms of service for websites

  394. Proseline

    peer to peer prose editing

  395. Six Great Deals Books

    read these books

  396. Public Domain Chronicle

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

  397. Help Wanted

    kinds of help I could use

  398. Transparent Contract Components

    sharper tools, finer toolmarks

  399. MPL-2.0 versus OPL-2.1

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  400. Lexical Scope for Contracts

    wandering ever closer to LISP

  401. I Have Another Blog

    you may want to subscribe on License Zero, too

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

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  403. CLAs are Not a Sham

    licensing with friends, improved and improving

  404. The Well Appointed Skinner Box

    farewell, Medium

  405. Contract Components

    fine-grained means of abstraction in legal drafting

  406. Debian Free Software Guidelines versus the Open Source Definition

    a redline (diff) showing changes

  407. Mercenary Rapport

    moral blindness in open source on social media

  408. Unsustainability at Scale

    today’s tools for yesterday’s problems tomorrow

  409. Feed this Bear

    indie coder, promote thyself!

  410. Overkill

    doing IP law wrong, and getting away with it

  411. The License Zero Manifesto

    sustainable software in the open

  412. Prescription Contracts

    thinking about direct lawyer guidance on rxnda.com

  413. Null Value

    against demise of the hacker public license

  414. Nobody’s Clients

  415. RxNDA.com

    breaking the NDA logjam

  416. Seven Takeaways from the SEC DAO Report

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

  417. Switchmode Developer Agreement

    an open form contract for open source contractors

  418. Open Software Service Terms

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

  419. It’s Not About Community

    another view of Open Source

  420. Open Source: Theory of Operation

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

  421. Debian 8.7 on Dell Optiplex 7010

  422. Open Source License Business Perception Report

    the pain and confusion of common open licenses, roughly quantified

  423. Against Legislating the Nonobvious

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

  424. The Mendicant Maintainerati

    no holy fools for Open Source

  425. The MIT License, Line by Line

    171 words every programmer should understand

  426. The Earl of Ethereum’s Case

    Who keeps a blockchain’s conscience?

  427. Deal Mechanic

    The writing on the door.

  428. Emancipation by Reference

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

  429. Node.js Streams

    fundamental abstractions reviewed and revisited

  430. IP Field Guide

    publicly licensed, publicly available intro for non-lawyers

  431. The JavaScript Joke Was on Me

    or, a few things learned the hard way

  432. Circulation Policy

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

  433. Annotations in Context

    A first attempt at useful, responsible Common Form annotations

  434. 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.

  435. License from Who?

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

  436. The Triplebyte Plan

    The tangled web of one start-up equity plan

  437. The Berneout Pledge

    Sucks less than CLAs!

  438. First Read: The Fair Source License

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

  439. I’ll Never Be a Super Lawyer

    In feigned ignorance there is no grace.

  440. Startup Unix

    An open legal operating system for start-up technology companies

  441. What Enumeration Means

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

  442. Template Ambiguity

    Document assembly can make ambiguity even harder to spot.

  443. The Blanks Problem

    A tough Common Form design decision explained.

  444. Term Injection

    Fighting insertion of unexpected terms in automated form contracts

  445. React Patent Redline

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

  446. Certificated Assent

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

  447. Hacking Common Form

    Overview of existing Common Form software for programmers

  448. Terms of Service; Already Read

    Verifiable contracts should help consumers, too.

  449. Reproduction of Hierarchy

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

  450. Index Card Contracts

    Common Form for paper people

  451. Grab-Bag Contracts

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

  452. Named Provisions

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

  453. vesting.js

    From code to law and back again

  454. Blind Patches

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

  455. Modularity is not the Law

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

  456. The Halliburton Hypothesis

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

  457. Value Statement

    as found at the feet of my bills

  458. FTC 2014 Year in Review

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

  459. Common Form

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

  460. 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

  461. 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.