Free Software Licensing 101 with FSF copyright & licensing associate Craig Topham
by
Free Software Foundation
Contributions
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Published on
Jun 12, 2025 03:11 PM
This free software licensing 101 talk is intended to cover as many details as possible involving the subject of free software licensing. The talk is broad in scope and is geared toward the beginner and intermediate audience.
| When |
Jun 22, 2025
from 02:00 PM to 02:50 PM |
|---|---|
| Where | Portland, OR, USA |
Discussion points include:
- What does it mean to be compatible with the GPL?
- Why are the GPLv2 and GPLv3 incompatible?
- What is a permissive license?
- Why is Apache 2.0 a better choice when choosing a permissive license?
- How does public domain fit into all of this?
- How do I adequately license my code for my hardware?
- How do I protect software freedom with my hardware?
Craig came to work for the Free Software Foundation as a copyright and licensing associate at the end of 2018. Some of Craig’s FSF duties include: handling copyright assignments, GPL compliance for FSF-copyrighted works, and helping with the Respect Your Freedom program. Besides the desire to see free software thrive, Craig also envisions a world where everyone’s inner light shines bright. Unrelated to free software Craig is the world’s premiere plicyklist so you’ll have to attend the talk in order to find out what that means.
The time listed on this event page is in local time (CDT).