This coming Tuesday at the Freedom to Connect conference in Washington DC, Eben Moglen will be delivering the 11:00am keynote on the topic of Innovation under Austerity. The talk will be followed by 30 minutes of discussion lead by Doc Searls and others. All events at the conference will take place at the American Film Institute, located at 8633 Colesville Road. Directions are available here and registration for the event is still open here.

Eben Moglen will be giving a talk at this year's re: publica conference on May 2 in Berlin. The talk will be called "Why Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media and Why Free Media Require Free Technology" and is scheduled for 11:00-12:00 on Stage 1.

As largely self-organizing groups, free software projects have always faced unique challenges when they decide to formally incorporate. The choice whether to form a nonprofit or a for-profit carries not only legal but community consequences. Recently, these choices have only become more complex. The IRS is closely scrutinizing the applications of new free software nonprofits applying for tax exemption, and may apply more exclusive criteria to new applications than it has in the past. Recognizing a need, some established nonprofits have begun sponsoring the activity of smaller, unincorporated projects. And several U.S. states have adopted laws authorizing new "hybrid" corporate forms, "benefit corporations" organized for profit but dedicated to the public benefit. This presentation will discuss the changing corporate landscape of free software and discuss how projects should approach these issues when they consider incorporation.

Eben Moglen will be speaking at this year's LibrePlanet, which will be held this March 24th and 25th in the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Eben will be speaking on the second day of the conference at 10:10 in the U03-3550/Ballroom. The conference is free for FSF associate members and more information is available from the LibrePlanet online schedule.

As a free/open source software project grows from idea to running code to stable release, its developers will inevitably be confronted with a number of legal issues. Some of these issues, like copyright licensing, are widely understood. Others, like the trademark implications of selecting a project name, are commonly overlooked. In this session, two lawyers for the Software Freedom Law Center will explain the basic legal concepts that confront a project over its lifecycle.

Topics will include:

• Copyrights: choosing and applying a license, understanding contributor policies, and dealing with license interactions and compatibility issues.
• Trademarks: selecting a project name, drafting an acceptable use policy, and minding the rights of others.
• Patents: understanding patents and protecting your project from aggressive patent holders.
• Incorporation: limiting developers’ liability, understanding fiscal sponsorship, and deciding whether to form a nonprofit.

Eben Moglen will be giving the keynote at this year's annual Morningside Post Conference on Digital Media on the topic of "Navigating the Age of Democratized Media". The conference is run at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in New York City. Eben's keynote will begin at 3:00, right after the opening remarks. The conference is open to the public so if you are in the NY area, come by and take a look.

Eben Moglen will be keynoting this year's FOSDEM conference in Brussels. His talk will be called "Why Political Liberty Depends on Software Freedom More Than Ever". If you are able to make it to FOSDEM, come hear Eben speak.

Eben Moglen will be speaking at the Congressional “Do-Not-Track Legislation: Is Now the Right Time?” hearing held in Washington D.C. December 2nd. This hearing will examine the feasibility of establishing a mechanism that provides Internet users a simple and universal method to opt-out from having their online activity tracked by data-gathering firms.

Eben Moglen is giving a special keynote address at the Open World Forum in Paris, France on September 30. For more details about the event, visit the forum website.

Karen Sandler, the SFLC's General Counsel, is participating in a panel at the 5th annual policy forum of the leading IT professional law association in the UK, the Society for Computers and Law. Sandler will discuss her research on free software in medical devices and other free software licensing issues.

For more details about the panel and the forum, visit the SCL website. The SFLC's paper on free software in medical devices, "Killed by Code: Software Transparency in Implantable Medical Devices," is available on our website.

Abstract: The World Wide web is less that 7000 days old. In that short time, it has changed human life around the world forever. When it is 10,000 days old it will have begun eradicating ignorance and changed for the better the fate of billions of people, or else it will be constructing the most oppressive system of inequality and un-freedom ever devised by tyranny. In this speech, I consider how, the FOSS community we might affect which happens.

The date of this event is subject to change. For more details, visit the Open Source India conference website.