On the evening of the the 2nd of April 2008 James
Vasile from the Software Freedom Law Center in New York gave a public
presentation entitled "Replicating the Success of Free Software".
This took place in room 7140 in the Stoddart building at Sheffield
Hallam University. The meeting started at 7 p.m. and fiinished at
around 9 p.m.
http://www.shu.ac.uk/services/marketing/tour/stoddart.html
http://www.shu.ac.uk/visit/

The content of James' talk was something like the
following. 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 the success of free software 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. James has also contributed
code and documentation to numerous FOSS software projects. He is
admitted to practice in the State of New York. You might like to
read the blog which is maintained by James...
Organised by Sheffield Linux User's Group and sponsored and venue provided by the South Yorkshire branches of the
British Computing Society and the
Institution of Engineering and Technology..
http://www.theiet.org/
http://www.bcs.org/
See also....
http://www.sheflug.org.uk/meeting.html