Episode: 1773
Title: HPR1773: LFNW 2015 interview with Deb Nicholson
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1773/hpr1773.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 09:06:43

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I'm here at Linux Fest Northwest with Deb Nicholson. Where are you from Deb?
I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, although originally from Maryland, so I don't have that accent.
I guess we wanted to get together here to get some audio for Hacker Public Radio, so I'm just going to let you go and talk about what you would like to share with us.
To start out with, I just got out of the class or the session here at Linux Fest Northwest. Tell us a little bit about that and I guess say everything you said there again.
You don't have to do that, just kind of summarize and then talk about the other things and I'll have some questions for you a little later.
Okay, so I was talking about software patent litigation data, so we've been having increasingly more and more software patent suits over the last 10, 20 years, which has produced a lot of data about how those suits work.
So I discussed some of the trends, ways that the judges have been hearing these cases and the way they've been ruling on them, I talked about how the lawyers for the plaintiffs have gotten more savvy and more targeted in the way that they bring these suits.
And I also talked about some of the legislation that is being tried in different jurisdictions to at least cut out some of the worst troll behavior in their states or municipalities.
So we kind of looked at that and then I talked about the open invention network where I work, which is we run a defensive patent pool for Linux and Android and GNU and tons of other free and open source software projects.
And it's a mutual non-aggression pact, everyone agrees to not sue each other and they cross license the patents they do hold to each other for defensive purposes.
So people that of course are developers have ideas and inventions that there are going to be a number of unique ones.
And so people would, you talked about one method for avoiding patenting your invention.
Oh, defensive publications.
Yes, can you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah, so a lot of folks would like to not necessarily get a patent on their work, but not allow some other party to get patent on their work.
And so you can register what's called a defensive publication with US Patent and Trade Office, which is essentially your producing prior art that lets the US Patent Office, it helps them to understand better what the current state of the art is.
And then they don't give a patent out on your idea because they have it in their database. That's the goal.
Of course, it has to also be indexed and keyworded correctly so that they can find it when they're looking for it too.
Right. And speaking more about the open invention network, just reiterate what the mission is there and how it might help individuals that might not be plugged into a large company or have resources.
And just really don't know a lot about that, but still have good ideas and inventions.
Yeah, so the open invention network was founded by six large companies that got sick of suing each other.
They decided to sign an agreement to stop suing each other.
And then because of the nature of free and open source software, everyone is constantly using each other's stuff all the time.
Our legal system depends on presidencies, so we'll call them the big fish, like IBM and Red Hat and Novel and Sony.
They decided, well, I guess we've got to invite some of the small and midsize fish in here too because the more people we have in the community of non-aggression, the better it's going to be.
So we provide this. It's one of those great places where the community's needs are all aligned. Everyone wants less suing.
So we've created a mechanism to ensure that community members don't switch other over Linux and GNU and Android stuff.
And that means that for smaller projects that don't have any patents or don't have any resources, they are able to borrow from the pool because they've got all these cross-licensed things.
And it gives them what my boss always calls freedom to operate. There's just a lot.
You don't have to worry about your right-next door neighbor. You have to worry about maybe the proprietary competitor that's doing a slightly different thing.
But you don't have to worry about your friends and community members suing you, which is great.
So how are individuals, members of the OpenVention network?
Yeah, so individuals with projects. So our project size ranges from, you know, like I said, IBM all the way down to like one person with a single, you know, maybe like 300 line code project.
I mean, I don't know if 300 lines is, I've picked that. It might be a little bit more, maybe they're working on more of it.
But so there are small projects that are like a single author and they have joined the OpenVention network.
So for people to get in touch with the OpenVention network or to get more information, where did they go?
So they can come to our website. It's the OpenInventionNetwork.com.
And they can, there's a couple of different emails depending on what, you know, what they have questions about.
If they're interested in defensive publications, they would go through the Linux Defenders part of the site and contact us there.
If they're interested in becoming part of the OpenInvention Network and, you know, signing the mutual non-aggression pact, there's a specific, I hope, seems to me, pretty obvious plays on the website to contact us through for that.
So is there anything else you want to say about patents or, I'm sure there's much.
Yeah, not specifically. It's just, it's very interesting to have watched this topic go from a place where people had no idea what was going on and were passing along a lot of misinformation to where I'm, you know, I feel like the community is pretty well aware of what the problems are, what the difference between a practicing entity and a non-practicing entity is.
And what the risks are and also they're ignoring it's not going to fix it and that they're more cited about proactive approach.
And I think that has to do with having a better understanding of the issue. So it's been really, it's been really fun for me to see like the community as a whole sort of become a little more savvy.
Okay, and one last question about that. How long have you been working for the OpenInventionNetwork?
I think I'm at about three years now, maybe three in teens. So, you know, I never think of this unless I'm looking at my resume, which I haven't looked at in a while.
So you must be happy working there.
Yeah, no, it's great work and I get to, I get to meet really smart people who are working on really exciting stuff.
When we talked about doing this interview, there was a couple other things we talked about and one of them was the Linux Fest that's going to be held in Seattle.
You said in the, told me in then, of course, in the session that you're involved in that. So why don't we hear a little bit about that?
Right. So the Seattle Unilinux Fest grew out of a couple of us that met here at Linux Fest Northwest.
And the first year I flew into Bellingham, there's like a teeny little kind of terrifying plane you can take from Seattle to Bellingham.
But I met some great folks, freestyle for activists and coders and cis admins from Seattle and they said, well, next year you should just drive up from Seattle with us.
So on those car shows, we're like, we should really have an event just in Seattle.
And that, you know, we eventually like talked ourselves into volunteering to run this event because, you know, eventually you come to the realization that somebody should run becomes you.
So, so the Seattle Unilinux Fest, that's why it's like almost opposite the calendar year from Linux Fest Northwest.
We don't want to steal their thunder. We're really more trying to add and emulate what they're doing. And this is, this is an event that happens in downtown Seattle and the Capitol Hill neighborhood.
We've partnered with a community college. So we want to make it really loose takes for people that live in Seattle to like kind of swing by and check out like green open source software and see if that's a thing they want to learn more about.
So like, it's a Friday and a Saturday. All day Friday, we've got sessions for students that might be considering a career in free and open source software.
And then Saturday is a little bit more of a mix. We get more of the hobbyists and more of the hardware talks and stuff like that. But it's a, it's a small but growing event.
We've got Richard Strauman is one of our keynotes this year. Some of your listeners might know who he is.
He's actually been interviewed on Hacker Public Radio before. Oh, I'm not surprised by Pokey. Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. And so our message speaking and then also Sean Gordon McCann who is the primary mover and shaker behind open hatches work to introduce students to free and open source software.
So she's been traveling around the country and going to colleges and doing workshops to help people get to their first pass. So, you know, she's, she's on the very bleeding new edge and then RMS is kind of where it all started.
So we wanted, we thought it would be really fun to have kind of both ends of the spectrum covered like that.
Okay. So it's going to be on Friday and Saturday. And in which day should I be planning on attending?
Oh, I would say both. Like there will be a tractor students on Friday, but there will be other stuff going on on Friday. And then the keynotes are both on Saturday.
It's a community college. So we get the big room on Saturday, but not Friday. It's one of those fun. They're giving us the college doughnuts this face to us. So they've been a great partner.
Yeah. This will be what year? This is our third year. Okay. This will be our third year. And it's October 24th and 25th.
Okay. And then that would be 2015. I want to get that in.
Oh, right. Cause this will might be on the site for a long time.
It'll be a little beyond there forever. I'm sure. And then for you know, anything about lodging in the area around there? Is it close by lodging or?
Yeah. Actually, I stayed at it was called the silver cloud hotel. It's like it was a block away. And Seattle has a robust Airbnb community.
There's you know, all of the major hotel chains. If you're one of those people like a point town or whatever, I'm sure you'll be able to find your hotel in Seattle.
Yeah. And so another topic I talked to you about was media goblin until the HPR audience, which your involvement with that is and how that's going.
Right. So media goblin as it's a new project and it's a decentralized media hosting. And I act as sort of our community liaison.
So I do a lot of the writing of the plain English stuff, not the code so much. Do a lot of our outreach planning. Chris and I work together on the fundraising campaigns that we've run.
We've done two crowdfunding campaigns to get money in to work on media goblin. And then this coming year, I'm looking into different options with Chris. Chris is doing lion share of the work, but he's, you know, we're collaborating a bit on.
Finger on a business model to offer hosting coupled with a media goblin installation. Okay. So a comparison of media goblin with something that's out there already.
Would you be willing to name service it's out there? People often say like, oh, it's like free software flicker. Although I would say it's more than that because instead of separating each of your media types out into a different place.
And then having one large company have all your video and then another one have all of your music and then another one have all of your pictures and another one have all of your 3d models.
You would have one website that is built around you. So the media is sorted by the individual and not by the company that's chosen to host that media type.
Which gives you more control and it gives you a more cohesive presence on the web too.
And this is a FSF project, correct? It's a good new project. Right. So your freedom is guaranteed. Yes, we're an ADPL project. So we use the TPL for the web, which is the a pharaoh general public license.
We're one of the few new projects that is a web based project. Most new projects are part of the distribution, but we feel that we're not going to talk people out of this whole internet thing.
So we should enable them to use the internet and freedom. Okay, so what can people do to help media goblin? Oh, so we're Python project and so if you if you do Python, we'd love to have your coding assistance.
But even more so than that, we're very much a, you know, a user experience focused project. So if you are have experience with user UX or are just a really opinionated web user, we would love to hear from you.
Come by and try out the software and tell us, you know, that we put the buttons and all the wrong places or it's too hard to figure out how to do X, Y or Z.
So we want people with opinions. We want people who like to do writing. We want people to help us with user experience stuff. We have a lot of translators, but I would say we don't necessarily have translators for every language out there. So we're always looking for translators and coders.
Okay, and then we can you have an IRC channel for media goblin. We sure do. We're pounded media goblin on freeload.net. Okay, good. So is there anything else you'd like to add? I think those are most of the things.
I enjoyed the conference here and your talk was really good and it's nice to see you again because I know I saw you I think two or three years ago. Thank you very much. Thanks so much David. It was really good to have the opportunity to come talk to you again. Thank you.
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