FOSDEM Legal & Policy Issues DevRoom

Richard Fontana, Tom Marble, Karen Sandler, and I will reprise our roles as co-coordinators of the Legal and Policy Issues DevRoom for FOSDEM 2013. The CFP for the FOSDEM 2013 Legal & Policy Issues DevRoom is now available, and the deadline for submission is 21 December 2012, about 18 days from now.

I want to put a very specific call out to a group of people who may not have considered submitting a talk to a track like this before. In particular, if you are a Free Software developer who has ideas about the policy/licensing decisions for your project, then you should consider submitting a proposal.

The problem we have is that we often hear from lawyers, or licensing pundits like me on these types of tracks. We all have a lot to say about issue of policy or licensing. But, it's the developers who lead these projects who know best what policy issues you face, and what is needed to address those issues.

I also want to add something my graduate adviser once said to me: At the Master's level, it's sufficient for your thesis just to ask an important and complex question well. Only a PhD-level thesis has to propose answers to such questions. In my view, our track is at the Master's level: talks that ask complex licensing policy questions well, but don't necessarily have all the answers are just the kind of proposals we're seeking.

Please share this CFP widely. We've got a two-day dev room so there are plenty of slots, and while we can't guarantee acceptance of any specific talk, your job as submitters is to make the job of the co-chairs difficult by having to choose between many excellent talks. We look forward to your submissions!