American law professor and free software advocate
Eben Moglen
(born July 13, 1959) is an American legal scholar who is
professor
of
law
and legal history at
Columbia University
, and is the founder, Director-Counsel and
Chairman
of
Software Freedom Law Center
.
Biography
[
edit
]
Moglen started out as a computer programming language designer
[1]
and then received his
bachelor's degree
from
Swarthmore College
in 1980. In 1985, he received a
Master of Philosophy
in history and a
JD
from
Yale University
. He has held visiting appointments at
Harvard University
,
Tel Aviv University
and the
University of Virginia
since 1987.
He was a
law clerk
to Justice
Thurgood Marshall
(1986–87 term). He joined the faculty of
Columbia Law School
in 1987, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1988.
[2]
He received a
Ph.D.
in history from Yale University in 1993. Moglen serves as a director of the
Public Patent Foundation
.
Moglen was part of
Philip Zimmermann
's defense team, when
Zimmermann was being investigated
over the export of
Pretty Good Privacy
, a
public key encryption
system, under
US export laws
.
[3]
In 2003 he received the
EFF Pioneer Award
. In February 2005, he founded the Software Freedom Law Center.
Moglen was closely involved with the
Free Software Foundation
, serving as
general counsel
from 1994 to 2016 and
board member
from 2000 to 2007. As counsel, Moglen was tasked with enforcing the
GNU General Public License
(GPL) on behalf of the FSF,
[4]
and later became heavily involved with drafting version 3 of the GPL. On April 23, 2007 he announced in a blog post that he would be stepping down from the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation. Moglen stated that after the GPLv3 Discussion Draft 3 had been released, he wanted to devote more time to writing, teaching, and the Software Freedom Law Center.
[5]
In February 2011, Moglen created the Freedom Box Foundation to design software for a very small server called the
FreedomBox
. The FreedomBox aims to be an affordable personal server which runs only free software, with a focus on anonymous and secure communication.
[6]
[7]
FreedomBox launched version 0.1 in 2012.
[8]
Legal issues
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In October 2023 the
Free Software Foundation Europe
and
Software Freedom Conservancy
announced their intention to end their cooperation with the Software Freedom Law Center and with Moglen following allegations of abusive behaviour towards employees and community members.
[9]
[10]
The same day,
Bradley M. Kuhn
publicly accused Moglen of being an abusive employer and of hostility toward the
LGBTQIA+ community
, stating that the Software Freedom Law Center is no longer a
safe space
and that he's often worried about Moglen's students.
[11]
Such behaviours have also been documented since 2017 by
Matthew Garrett
.
[12]
Views
[
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]
Free software
[
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]
Moglen says that
free software
is a fundamental requirement for a democratic and free society in which we are surrounded by and dependent upon technical devices. Only if controlling these devices is open to all via free software, can we balance power equally.
[13]
Moglen believes the idea of
proprietary software
is as ludicrous as having "proprietary mathematics" or "proprietary geometry". This would convert the subjects from "something you can learn" into "something you must buy", he has argued. He points out that software is among the "things which can be copied infinitely over and over again, without any further costs".
[
citation needed
]
Moglen's Metaphorical Corollary to
Faraday's Law
is the idea that the information appearance and flow between the human minds connected via the Internet works like
electromagnetic induction
. Hence Moglen's phrase "Resist the resistance!" (i.e. remove anything that inhibits the flow of information).
[14]
Other
[
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]
Moglen has criticized what he calls the "reification of selfishness". He has said, "A world full of computers which you can't understand, can't fix and can't use (because it is controlled by inaccessible proprietary software) is a world controlled by machines."
[
citation needed
]
He has called on lawyers to help the Free Software movement, saying: "Those who want to share their code can make products and share their work without additional legal risks." He urged his legal colleagues, "It's worth giving up a little in order to produce a sounder ecology for all. Think kindly about the idea of sharing."
[
citation needed
]
Moglen has criticized trends which result in "excluding people from knowledge". On the issue of free software versus proprietary software, he has argued that "much has been said by the few who stand to lose". Moglen calls for a "sensible respect for both the creators and users" of software code. In general, this concept is a part of what Moglen has termed a "revolution" against the privileged owners of media, distribution channels, and software. On March 13, 2009, in a speech given at
Seattle University
, Moglen said of the
free software movement
that,
"
'When everybody owns the press, then freedom of the press belongs to everybody' seems to be the inevitable inference, and that's where we are moving, and when the publishers get used to that, they'll become us, and we'll become them, and the
first amendment
will mean: '
Congress
shall make no law ... abridging freedom of speech, or of the press ...',
not
? as they have tended to argue in the course of the 20th century ? 'Congress shall make no law infringing the sacred right of the
Sulzbergers
to be different'."
[15]
[
full citation needed
]
On the subject of
digital rights management
, Moglen said in 2006, "We also live in a world in which the right to tinker is under some very substantial threat. This is said to be because movie and record companies must eat. I will concede that they must eat. Though, like me, they should eat less."
[16]
See also
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References
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External links
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