/tech/Free Software Foundation Associate Member
This blog entry was lost by my ISP and they did not recover it. A fairly complete copy existed on blog aggregators, but it may have lost formatting or links.
You're reading the blog of the Free Software Foundation's newest member. The FSF is responsible for much of the software in the Linux operating system that I use. More importantly, they are the defenders of the GNU General Public Licence (GPL). The GPL is a clever trick with copyright that basically uses copyright to do the opposite of copyright -- protecting people's ability to use, examine, modify and share software legally. (The term defender is not an exaggeration. The FSF frequently pursues organizations who violate the GPL, and has been named in the Microsoft-funded SCO lawsuit against everything Linux. Those evil Mic... oops. Just ran out of ZealoutJuice"!. That's never happened to me before, I swear.)
I was enticed into the membership by a "free" copy of Lawrence Lessig's new book, Free Culture. Lessig is a well-known intellectual property lawyer. Last year he argued in front of the US Supreme Court that continued copyright extentions (now at life + 75 years, I believe) violate the US constitution. Unfortunately they didn't agree, although they were clearly swayed by some of his arguments.
The membership was 60USD/year. I rationalized it because (1) I've been wanting to support the people that build and defend the software that I use and (2) I found much cheaper flights home than I've been expecting. Still, I'm concerned about the world of spending that my credit card has opened up for me, even if it's "the good kind."
