Summaries of panels and presentations at the 3nd international GPLv3 conference; 22nd & 23rd June 2006

For more information about GPLv3 and how to participate, see our GPLv3 project page.

The following are brief summaries made after the third international GPLv3 conference, organised by FSFE in Barcelona. The entire conference was recorded and links to the audio and video are provided below next to each summary.

The videos are in Ogg Theora format, the audio files are in Ogg Vorbis format, and these can be downloaded with BitTorrent.

You can support work such as this by joining the Fellowship of FSFE, and by encouraging others to do so.

FSFE would like to thank all those who participated in the panels. With participants from four continents, containing programmers, lawyers, organisations, and representatives from each of the four GPLv3 discussion committees, these panels provide quite a whole picture of what's happening this year.

These panel contributions and presentations were made in English, with the exception of the contributions of Pablo Machón which were made in Spanish.

Sections on this page

Georg Greve: Opening presentation
Richard Stallman: Overview of GPLv3 changes
Ciaran O'Riordan: The public consultation process
Eben Moglen: The wording of the changes
Panel: FSFE Current Projects
Panel: Awareness and adoption of GPLv3
Pablo Machón: GPLv3 and the European software patent struggle
Panel: The discussion committees
Panel: Enforcing the GPL, Thwarting DRM
Links to further information

Georg Greve: opening introduction

Points covered by Georg Greve:

Opening address
Background of FSF and GNU
FSF maintains the Free Software Definition, the GPL, and the LGPL
FSF is about long term strategy
GPL is the pragmatic implementation and it makes parties with different goals work together
FSF started in MIT in Boston, but now there is a network of FSFs
There are four: FSF, FSF Europe, FSF India, FSF Latin America
Independent equals with some shared focuses and some differentiating focuses
Transparency is a lot of work, but FSFE feels it's important
FSFE is active in 10 countries through 25 people, working largely on a consensus basis
Of the 25, 10 have taken legal responsibility and are on the General Assembly, and that GA elects the president
FSFE has 13 associate organisations, mostly in Europe but also in Japan and Latin America
As well as many volunteers, FSFE has 5 full-time and 2 half-time employees, and we might have another full-time employee soon
If are interested in working with us, contact a Team member from your region. We try to work with people in their language. If you want to help, you're incredibly welcome
We do a lot of work at the United Nations, a lot in the European Union, a lot at the national level - legal work and business work and the Fellowship
Our focus for these two days is the GPL - the #1 Free Software licence
FSF is handling the GPLv3 process, and for that, we are here to help

Richard Stallman: Overview of GPL v3 Changes

A complete transcript of Stallman's talk and Q&A has been made.

Ciarán O'Riordan: The public consultation process

Audio: Being processed
Video: Being processed

O'Riordan explained, with screenshots, how people can use the gplv3.fsf.org website to view the existing comments and how people can make their own comments.

Eben Moglen: The wording of the changes

A complete transcript of Moglen's talk and Q&A has been made.

Panel: Current projects of FSFE

Carlo Piana (Tamos Piana & Partners), the MS anti-trust case
Pablo Machón, building the Spanish team
Ciaran O'Riordan, Legislation from Brussels
Stefano Maffulli, FSFE's Fellowship

[00:00 - 15:00 ]Topics discussed by Carlo Piana about the EU anti-trust case against Microsoft:

The situation when we joined the case, our goals, and our achievements
Microsoft was found guilty of anti-trust abuse, in "the Monti decision"
This decision imposed the largest fine ever for abuse of a dominant position, which is an anti-trust abuse, and required some remedies
One of those remedies is that Microsoft is supposed to provide complete documentation for Windows Workgroup server under reasonable and non-discriminatory clauses
Microsoft not happy, and they appealed
We asked for "leave to intervene", and it was granted, so we can testify
This is a case which has been constantly breaking records, in terms of size
Our goal, of course, was not Microsoft-bashing. Our main goal was to get Microsoft to start behaving like a good citizen
We want to establish a precedent, that companies cannot abuse their market power, especially not against Free Software
By being in the process, we have made useful allies and built our reputation
We are now getting quite respectful coverage from the media

[15:00 - 22:40] Topics discussed by Pablo Machón O'Riordan software patents and other legislative issues in Brussels:

[22:40 - 31:30] Topics discussed by Ciarán O'Riordan software patents and other legislative issues in Brussels:

I'm mostly working on GPLv3 this year, but the main work I do is about legislation
Sometimes this means talking to the politicians, sometimes it means coaching others who the politicians are more interested in talking to
We network the MEPs to build support - turning pockets of support into majorities
Pablo will talk about software patents later, so I want to mention the bigger picture that they are part of
Software patents were indirect discrimination
It's a burden that can't be born by many of our models
This issue will come back, but it won't come back in the same form - we've won too conclusively for the same to be tried again
One possibility is the community patent, and another is the European Patent Litigation agreement. Instead of changing the legislation, these change who makes the final rulings
There is also the IPRED2 - this criminalises many copyright, trademark, and patent infringements. It doesn't touch Free Software directly, but it makes software development a dangerous field, and makes grey areas seem not worth risking - such as, maybe, software patents
No out of court settlements, no insurance
I moved into legislation because our software is so good. Legislation is a week point for us, so we need more peopl to look at this
When we do this work, we have to build a movement. We can't start from scratch each time, we have to build teams and networks and relationships with politicians and journalists
"You can leave politics alone, but it won't leave you alone", a wise man said

[31:30 - 45:10] Topics discussed by Stefano Maffulli about The Fellowship:

I'm an architect, which makes me a software user
Speedbumps don't discriminate, they don't disappear when an ambulance needs to drive on the road - Free Software is about being able to control and shape our environment ourselves
Free Software, is about participation and inclusion
The software patent discussion shows that we can influence legislation
The Fellowship is a tool for collaboration, it's a community of people that support software freedom
We want to get people active and provide information
Most are hackers, these are people that know their tools very well
Fellows have an instant messaging server so they can communicate with each other, and a blog, and an email alias
The Fellowship programme has been active for 16 months now, and we're starting to see local activities
Most actions by the Fellows, are started independent of FSFE. The Fellows are taking the initiative and giving speeches and distributing information
That's the spirit: a community of people that want to do things
Fellows have an active connection to FSFE
We've made Fellowship cookies, or "Freedom fighter" cookies, and the recipe is available
So far, the Fellowship contributions have allowed us to hire Ciarán to work during the software patents battle, now we have surplus to possibly hire another

Panel: Awareness and adoption of GPLv3

Fernanda Weiden, Associação SoftwareLivre.org
Anne Østergaard, GNOME Foundation
Alexandre Oliva, Free Software Foundation Latin America
Gaudenz Steinlin, Debian
Manuel Martínez Ribas, Legistics

Pablo Machón: GPLv3 and the European software patent struggle

Panel: The Discussion Committees

Niibe Yutaka, Free Software Initiative Japan (committee A)
Sanna Nykanen, Nokia, (committee B)
Philippe Aigrain, Sopinspace (committee C)
Masayuki Hatta, Debian (committee D)

Panel: Enforcing the GPL, thwarting DRM

Harald Welte, gpl-violations.org
David "Novalis" Turner, Free Software Foundation
Mathias Klang, Informatics researcher, University of Goteborg
João Miguel Neves, Associação Nacional para o Software Livre
Malcolm Bain, Legistics

Stefano Maffulli: Closing presentation

Audio: Being processed
Video: Being processed

Maffulli closed the event mentioning the 4th international GPLv3 conference, which will take place in Bangalore, India, on August 23rd and 24th. He encouraged people to participate in the process and to help bring awareness into to groups and forums outside of our easy reach.

Links to further information

For general information, links, and a schedule, see our GPLv3 project page
See the conference webpage for more information about the conference
You can support FSFE's work, such as our GPLv3 awareness work, by joining the Fellowship of FSFE, and also by encouraging others to do so