Group: Free Software Foundation/Licensing Volunteers
Licensing Volunteers
The licensing volunteers part of the FSF's licensing team help to answer the many questions we receive every day regarding the use and abuse of free software licenses. They discuss issues on IRC with the FSF licensing staff in order to help the free software community to better understand licensing. Volunteers can also take on various licensing related projects, like helping import licenses from our license list into the Free Software Directory. Note that volunteers (even if they are lawyers) are not permitted or asked to give legal advice as part of their volunteer work. If you are interested in becoming a licensing volunteer, then please write to licensing@fsf.org and tell us a bit about your background, both legal and with the free software community.
Potential Projects
Below is a list of some potential licensing projects that you might be interested in undertaking. If you want to take on one of these projects, or if you have an idea for a different licensing project you'd like to work on, let us know by sending a message to <licensing@fsf.org>. We would love to have your help.
- Collect interview candidates who selected a GNU license for their project
- Collect license use statistics
- Work on updating <http://directory.fsf.org> with free software packages
- Update our license compatibility chart to have AGPLv3 included - <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AllCompatibility>
- Help review devices at the Boston FSF office for the Respects Your Freedom Program <https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom>. This project is great for volunteers familiar with building and installing software, and with a good understanding of how hardware works. If you can Libreboot <https://libreboot.org/> a machine this might be a good opportunity for you.
Become a Licensing Intern
Come to Boston to learn and work with the FSF licensing team. An internship in the compliance lab is a great opportunity for law students or students looking towards law school, or for computer science students looking to expand their understanding of licensing. It is a chance to learn about free software licensing and related legal issues like patent law. For more details on becoming an intern, please see this page <http://www.fsf.org/volunteer/internships>.
This page was a featured resource in August 2012.
