– By Grant Gross –
FreeDevelopers.net, the group of coders who’ve banded together to democratically create Free Software, has unveiled a “revolutionary” company structure in which programmers who join the cause will get a piece of the pie.

Called “the Community is the Company,” FreeDevelopers.net’s new company structure, announced today (March 20) is something like a farming cooperative, in which hog farmers pool their resources to form a slaughtering facility. But the programmers don’t need to erect a building, they just work together to create software, and the FreeDevelopers.net proposal goes well beyond the traditional cooperative, says founder Tony Stanco.

“This goes so far beyond anything else, because it is intellectual work and international, that we don’t like to compare it to anything out there,” says Stanco, a former senior securities attorney at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “If we are going to compare it to anything it would be more like to a HUGE partnership of super architects. But it would be one hell of a large partnership with all the architects in one firm … But that doesn’t really get it all either, because while the community shares and builds
everything together, they are really all working on one huge interconnected project
around the world. “

Here’s how it would work: Ownership of the developer cooperative, FreeDevelopers.net, will be placed in a 10-year trust, with approximately .8 percent of the ownership of company released to the participating developers every month. That developer cooperative will have majority control of the Free Software Marketing Company, which will be a public company with investors.

“The major innovation of the FreeDevelopers structure is that it inverts the traditional developer-marketer axis, so that the community of software developers controls the marketers,” says the guide document. “The proprietary structure has it reversed — the corporate marketers have been controlling the developers.”

The proposal also calls for hardware companies to join with FreeDevelopers.net, to deliver better products. Customers benefit from this whole idea with “superior code development, stability, security, greater efficiencies, more innovations, less upgrades and no supplier lockup,” the guide document says.

Developers don’t have to contribute code to become part of the company; all they have to do is become a member, Stanco says. “For contributing code there will be salaries (but salaries come from sales revenue, so there needs to be the build up in sales first to start
paying the salaries. But as sales start happening, we can start paying the
salaries).”

People interested should read and sign FreeDevelopers.net’s Declaration of Software Freedom, which promised the commercial organization. The declaration, released on Valentine’s Day, 2001, has been signed by more than 620 people from places such as the United States, Poland, India, Australia, Greece, Iran, Romania, and Ecuador. Among those who’ve signed it is Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, who’s given his blessing to FreeDevelopers.net. (Someone calling himself William Gates has also signed it.) The declaration received some mixed reviews, with critics saying the Free Software people were stretching to compare themselves to the freedom fighters of the U.S. Revolutionary War.

Next for FreeDevelopers.net, founded in the fall of 2000, is feedback from the community on the proposed company and building up the membership. “Once we hear back from the community to make sure we are on the right track, we will include with any improvements/suggestions and move on to formalize it,” Stanco says.

FreeDevelopers.net has about 700 active members, who’ve mostly been working on projects assigned by Stallman, Stanco says. FreeDevelopers.net has hosted an e-voting project.

“[Number] comparisons are not really appropriate, because this is the time when we are really turning to the business side,” Stanco says. “Up until now, we were laying the philosophical and ethical foundations and precedents … Now we are calling up all the troops and are getting ready to seriously fight the war, which has to be fought on an
economic front. As such, we are now telling people what is in it for them, how they will be paid, how they will benefit. And there will be many, many more interested in how this will help them than were interested in knowing how they could help free software.”

The entire developer community of 4 million people are potential members/owners, according to the guide document. “The more that join, the more powerful it becomes, and the more valuable is the company.”

Stanco is optimistic that the proposed company structure will work. “I’m a former Securities and Exchange Commission securities attorney, Internet and software group, and have a masters of law in financial regulation,” he says. “I think this is a very revolutionary structure.”

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments
posted on our discussion
page.

Jay Sulzberger of LXNY gives us the scoop on tomorrow’s meeting:

To: editors@newsforge.com
Subject: Wednesday 21 March 2001 NYNMA: Panel on Copyright, Digital Media,
and the Right to Private Ownership of Computers


Disney, Sony, DoubleClick, RIAA, and the MPAA today demand that private
ownership of computers be outlawed.  Their argument is that the Cartel must
be protected against computer owners running their computers in manners and
modes not approved by the Cartel.  The Cartel's proposed remedy against
such licentious and anarchic use of private property is simple: that after
July 2001 every single new IDE hard drive include one megabyte of spy
firmware, which will oversee all hard disk operations, and communicate
directly with the Ministry of Truth and Infotainment.

http://eurorights.org
http://www.toad.com/freedom.speech.software
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-03-04-001-20-NW-HW-KN
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/03/17/1624234&mode=thread
http://www.nylug.org/articles/index.shtml?nycdvdcourt
http://www.nylug.org/articles/index.shtml?washdvdprotest
http://www.eff.org
http://www.openlaw.org
http://www.fsf.org

Jay Sulzberger 
Corresponding Secretary LXNY
LXNY is New York's Free Computing Organization.
http://www.lxny.org




From: Stephen Filler 
Subject: [wwwac] March 21 NYC Event on Copyright and Digital Media

An event concerning copyright and digital media is being held March 21 by
The New York New Media Association Digital Content Special Interest Group
and the New York County Lawyers Intellectual Property Committee.

Speakers include:

Martin Garbus, Frankfurt Garbus Kurnit Klein & Selz, PC
Allan Adler, VP Legal and Governmental Affairs, Association of American Publishers
RogerParloff, Legal Editor, Inside

The event will be co-moderated by James Alexander of Mibrary and attorney
Stephen Filler.

Here are the details:

NYNMA's Digital Content Special Interest Group (SIG) in conjunction with
the Intellectual Property Committee of New York County Lawyers Association
(NYCLA) Present:

Rights to Bytes: What control do consumers have over their digital assets
navigating the grey areas of First Sale and Fair Use in an immaterial
world.

Wednesday, March 21, 6:00  7:30 PM

Sony Entertainment, 550 Madison Avenue (between 56th and 57th Streets),
2nd floor

The question is deceptively simple: Do we as consumers have the right to
resell and make fair use of ebooks, mp3s or other digital media we have
legally purchased?  After all, we have the right to dispose of our physical
books and cds in any way we see fit, but digital content consumers face new
technologies and contracts that restrict these rights.  Why should digital
content have a different set of rules?

This special Panel Event will look at how recent developments in
technology, law and  the Digital Millennium Copyright Act may be
restricting consumers' rights in ways never before imagined.

Join NYNMA's Digital Content SIG, NYCLA's Intellectual Property Committee
and a panel of industry leaders for an evening of speculative debate and
lively discussion on this hot topic. This distinctive event will be
moderated by SIG Co-Chair James Alexander of Mibrary and attorney
Stephen Filler from NYCLA's Intellectual Property Committee. Panelists to
be announced.

NYNMA Members - Free
Non-Members - $15
NYCLA Members:  Contact Stephen Filler at events@nylawline.com

The last NYNMA Digital Content SIG event was sold out.  RSVP today!  To
reserve your seat, visit the NYNMA Events Homepage at
https://www.nynma-membership.org/ScriptContent/Index.cfm.

For more information about this SIG, please visit the Special Interest
Group web page on http://www.nynma.org/.

For information on sponsorship opportunities for future events, please
email Rob Valencia, at rvalencia@nynma.org.


Stephen Filler
Attorney at Law
111 Broadway 13th Floor
New York, NY 10006
(212)346-4673
sfiller@nylawline.com
http://www.nylawline.com

ZDNET.co.uk: “Tripod, which lets people create personal home pages, routinely
polices its online community for sites that may host content that
violates its terms of service. If Tripod, owned by Internet service
Terra Lycos, receives a complaint by another member or finds
material on someone’s page deemed in violation, the service can pull
the site.

Tripod spokeswoman Dorianne Almann said the company’s computer
systems had been removing member pages that were in violation of its
terms of service. Unfortunately, many other sites that were not
violating the agreement were swept away as well. These sites will be
restored onto the service in 24 hours to 48 hours.”

Avatar writes, “Three clicks to Linux from Windows. What?!?! Three clicks? That was what I was told when I got this distro. Disbeliever that I am, I got ready to destroy this new comer to the Linux community. Three clicks, yeah right!
Find out how this distro really held up under Evil3D’s pounding right here“

Russ Foster writes, “Chris DiBona is a man who takes an active part in the growth and development of Linux. Aside from co-authoring Open Sources – a “must read” collection of short essays on the subject of – you guessed it – Open Source, Chris is also one of the chairs of Linux International, an organisation which strives to further the acceptance of Linux in the mainstream. When Chris is not busy testifying for US citizens’ rights in the DVD reverse engineering trials, he works at VA Linux Systems. (VA Linux owns Newsforge.) The following interview gives an insight into the views of one of the quieter, but influential, forces pushing the Open Source message towards the masses.
Full story at SlashTCO.com“

“Linux is powerful enough as an operating system to have caused the major operating system vendors in the world to change the way that they do business. Examples include how Sun has moved its licensing, and how Microsoft is said to be showing select customers Windows 2000 source code. IBM understands free, although open is a new concept for it. And as long as Linux hackers stick to their principles, it’s likely that even more change is in the offing as operating system vendors watch free and open change the playing field.” More at Byte.com.

SeattleTimes: “The audacious [Microsoft] vision left some
software developers agape and
prompted a rival to suggest
Microsoft continues to wield
monopolistic power, but Microsoft
executives said they’re only trying to give people more power over
their computers and fulfill the Internet’s promise of easily managed
information.”

Infoworld: “Adding higher caliber bullets to its server gun pointed at Sun Microsystems,
IBM on Tuesday announced it is bringing its high-end AIX clustering software,
referred to as Blue Hammer, over to work under Linux.”

At Slashdot, they’re pointing to an Electronic Telegraph story about Bush’s privacy problems with email. Not even the president – or perhaps especially not the president – is immune to snooping.

Anonymous Reader writes “http://www.aztechbiz.com/news/20010319/232106

It’s an editorial about Open Source in Arizona as it relates to the nearly ready for production, MyLinux Pocket Linux Workstation (PLW) Project. It’s a cross between a PDA and a full powered workstation.”