CopyleftConf was great, you should go next year

Two weeks ago, I was fortunate to attend the inaugural Copyleft Conference. It was held in Brussels, Belgium the day after FOSDEM. Since I was in town anyway, I figured I should just extend my trip by a day to attend this conference. I couldn’t be happier that I did.

Software licensing doesn’t get enough discussion at conference as it probably should. And among the talks that do happen, copyleft licenses specifically get only a portion of that. But with major projects like the Linux kernel using copyleft licenses — and the importance of copyleft principles to open source software generally — the Software Freedom Conservancy decided that a dedicated conference is in order.

I was impressed with how well-organized and well-attended the conference was for a first try. The venue was excellent, apart from some acoustic issues in the main room. The schedule was terrific: three rooms all day, each filled with talks from the world’s leading experts. I commented to a friend that if the building were to collapse, 80% of the worlds copyleft expertise would disappear.

For me, some of the excitement was just being around all of those people:

Molly deBlanc’s keynote was simultaneously inspiring and disturbing. She spoke of how software freedom matters to everyone, but how it matters to marginalized people in different ways. Ad networks can expose that someone at risk is seeking help. “Smart” homes can be used by domestic abusers to torment their victims. The transparency that free software brings isn’t just a nice-to-have, it can materially impact people’s lives.

The other session that was particularly interesting to me was Chris Lamb’s discussion of the Commons Clause. Chris was more focused on the response of the community to Redis Labs’ decision to adopt it than the Commons Clause itself. He viewed Redis Labs’ decision to adopt and subsequent refusal to abandon the Commons Clause as a failure of the copyleft community to make a compelling argument. Drawing on the work of Aristotle, Chris argued that we, as interested and knowledgeable parties, should have done a better job making our case. The question, of course, is who the “we” is that Chris is exhorting. This is a particularly key question for his advice to proactively address the concerns of companies.

Some of the other talks focused more directly on adapting to a new environment. Version 3 of the GNU General Public License was published in 2007. At the time, Amazon Web Services (as we currently know it) was just over a year old. The original iPhone was released on the same day. While the principles behind the GPLv3 haven’t changed, the reality of how we use software has changed dramatically. Van Lindberg’s talk on a new license he’s drafting for a client explored what copyleft looks like in 2019. And Alexios Zavras noted that the requirements to provide source code don’t necessarily apply as-written anymore.

In addition to meeting some new friends and idols, I was also able to spend some time with friends that I don’t get to see often enough. I’m already looking forward to CopyleftConf 2020.