[SlugBug] Replicating the Success of Free Software (in new media and other fields)

[Bill Best]

Fwd:

Replicating the Success of Free Software (in new media and other fields)

2 April 2008
7:00pm for 7:30pm (9:30pm finish)
Room 7140, Stoddart Building, Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus,
Sheffield S1 1WB

The Free Software movement has proven itself in every imaginable way.
We have quality software on servers, desktops and in embedded systems.
 Free Software is used in homes, offices, retail and in manufacturing,
everywhere from back rooms to classrooms and boardrooms.  We've
spawned new business models and changed the economics of old ones.
The challenges that are left will be met, and soon.

Such has been our success that we have spawned entire other movements.
 From Creative Commons to open hardware to open science, everybody
wants to replicate Free Software's achievements in new media.  Even
further, there are people fighting for values that, while beloved in
the Free Software world, are not protected by the Free Software
society - values like privacy and data portability between web
services.

Each of these attempts borrows from Free Software's history.  This
talk looks at what is being taken, what is being left, and why.  It's
an inquiry into the future, as we ask how to nurture these nascent
movements.

James Vasile holds a Juris Doctor (JD) from Columbia Law School, where
he was a member of the law review and a Stone Scholar.  He also has a
bachelor's degree in political science and economics from Fordham
University.  He spent several years in the litigation
department of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he worked on a range of
cases and dealt with a variety of new media issues.  Vasile has also
contributed code and documentation to numerous FOSS software projects.
 He is admitted to practice in the State of New York.