Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop 2020 cancelled due to COVID-19 outbreak
This year's FSFE's Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop has been cancelled. The FSFE thanks our contributors and looks ahead to organizing the event next year.
Due to the outbreak of COVID-19 currently gripping the world, in early March the FSFE had to make the difficult decision to cancel our upcoming Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop 2020 (the "Workshop"). Originally scheduled to take place from 15 - 17 April in Barcelona, Spain, the Workshop is an annual conference held every year since 2008 for the FSFE's Legal Network, and serves as a meeting point for FOSS legal experts to discuss issues and best practices surrounding Free Software licensing.
Many exciting sessions were scheduled for this year's Workshop, including discussions on the technological relevance of copyleft licenses, on the challenges facing Free Software with machine learning and big data, on ongoing litigation from various jurisdictions on software licensing, as well as many other talks and workshops.
While we are disappointed to have to cancel the Workshop, the FSFE's priority is the health and safety of participants and staff at our events, and public health. As we face this global health crisis together, the FSFE will continue to work to empower individuals to control technology, albeit without any physical gatherings for the time being.
Nevertheless, we are grateful for companies and individuals who have chosen to continue supporting us despite the cancellation of the Workshop. The FSFE truly appreciates their support and generosity. Accordingly, we would like to extend a warm thank you to our following generous financial supporters who have maintained their contributions to us through these difficult times: our Diamond Sponsors Amazon and Red Hat; our Sapphire Sponsor Microsoft; our Topaz Sponsor HP Inc, and our Ruby Sponsors Canonical, Ericsson, and Toyota.
Additionally, we would also like to thank our individual donors Andrew Wilson, Pamela Chestek, and Alberto Pianon for their generous support and contributions for the Workshop.
We are currently looking into remote options that will facilitate the sharing of knowledge within our legal community during this difficult period, including a possible alternative online event. In the meantime, the FSFE also looks ahead to being able to put up another great Workshop again in 2021 and the years to come, under better circumstances.