Evaluating a Program’s Free Software Licensing
08-16, 18:00–19:30 (US/Eastern), Workshop B / Tobin 221

This workshop involves walking participants through an evaluation process of a computer program’s licensing in order to determine if it is free software or not. This is not a master class on evaluating licenses for a mega-corporation, nor is it legal advice, and is not designed for lawyers. This is a grass roots level computer program evaluation process to determine if a program is licensed adequately to be called free software. Along the way, a reviewer may discover licensing issues or proprietary code files. They would then be in a position for sending suggestions to the project in order to resolve potential problems.

Craig Topham has been working as the copyright and licensing associate for the Free Software Foundation since 2018. Since then he has been helping users on a weekly basis evaluate programs' licensing at the Free Software Directory meetings. He has given talks and hosted panel at FOSDEM, FSFE'S LLW, LibrePlanet, SeaGL and other smaller conferences.

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