Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) Plays With Fire to Appease Large Corporations and Burn the People Behind the GPL/Copyleft

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Nov 11, 2023

Frame source (fair use): Video [1, 2] from the Linux Foundation

SO on Friday morning (also in this site) we mentioned the latest filing in the trademark case against the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), which is basically a ripoff and an imposter organisation that is literally selling verbal "Thank-Yous" to large organisations (same as the Linux Foundation). They hope that swimming next to the sharks will get them food and money. They may be right.

Yesterday we caught this new article about it. We weren't expecting the media to cover this; but this is a blog that has just turned 19 (days ago) and that Techrights links to regularly (almost every day). Notice the "Caveat" below:

[Caveat: Yours Truly represents Respondent in this proceeding]. In what appears to be a case of first impression at the TTAB, the Board granted a motion for a protective order excluding Professor Eben Moglen (Columbia Law School), petitioner's executive director, from taking or attending the discovery depositions of two witnesses, due to past harassment. "Respondent's evidence indicates the likely harm to Mr. Kuhn and Ms. Sandler should Mr. Moglen be present at their depositions, let alone take their depositions. This would present significant prejudice to Respondent's ability to defend the cancellation." Software Freedom Law Center v. Software Freedom Conservancy, Cancellation No. 92066968 (November 8, 2023) [not precedential].

[...]

Mr. Moglen argued, in part, that he should not be disqualified from taking the depositions because:

[T]heir testimony is they are afraid. Let them call their frailties and troubles what they like, they are no basis for interfering with our, SFLC’s, right to be represented by the counsel of our choice.

After decades spent law professing, I guess there are quite a few people who, imagining me cross-examining them, would feel afraid. Their subjective moods do not constitute a basis for limiting my state-granted right to practice law.

So the author at least discloses the conflict of interest upfront. How much of the SFC's budget has been devoted to this case (and blog post)? Anyway, let's dissect this very quickly, based on internal discussions. "Someone should ask Bradley [Kuhn] if he would like some cheese to go with that whine," one person suggested. He's basically focusing on moods and styles, not substance. The person who knows the case best and is legally qualified to present it is basically being excluded. How does this even make sense?

Well, this is where ad hominem attacks come in, trying to interfere with perceptions. The same tricks were being used against us, e.g. "ROY IS [some insult], SO IGNORE MY CRIME!!!"

"Karen and Bradely should be on the whole FOSS world's shit list for pulling this," one person told, "if they weren't already for the other stuff they have done recently. I wonder if there is some kind of trail leading back to Microsoft or something?"

To quote the above: "Their subjective moods do not constitute a basis for limiting my state-granted right to practice law."

I personally always disliked and did not trust Mr. Kuhn as he was arrogant and rude in identi.ca even around 2009 and other people associated with the FSF turned out to have felt the same way about him. Now he and Karen are becoming millionaires off of other people's hard work.

"I had not seen or heard of him until not that long ago," someone told me. "Karen was a little ok and her saga about the implant was interesting but then something happened and she turned bad, really bad. Where is all the money coming from, is there a paper trail of any kind leading back to Microsoft there?"

And it's "not just that they are becoming wealthy off of other's hard work, but that they are disparaging and tearing down those same people..."

It seems like they try to bypass the US Constitution using some "safe space" canard, with rudeness disguised as manners by appended pronouns to one's name and hiring provocateurs who pretend to be victims after repeatedly sending bad work to Linus Torvalds and then abusing him.

That's the SFC in a nutshell. "Recall what Jeremy Sand's (of S.E.L.F.) reportedly said about them trying to create a parallel set of laws under a parallel legal system of their own creation," the person told me. "And getting trolls in the media to write hatchet jobs against LT [Linus Torvalds] regarding his quality control on the code base and their misrepresentation of the complaints. LT is not worried about who wrote the code and their problems, only that the code is good. The trolls and astroturfers take the opposite position."

So what we basically have here is the SFC, helped by the FSF-EEE (another trademark abuser), meddling in the case with public press releases and character assassination, in effect comparing the accuser to a wife murderer and a dangerous person. The actual libel is done by mentally-ill militants, i.e. they keep distance from it. █