Joe no longer an FSF Licensing Volunteer

Well, folks... I feel the need to use this blog more like a diary at the moment. What a treat. Be prepared.

I've been dismissed from the FSF Licensing queue. (What's that? If you send email to licensing@fsf.org, it used to go to me and Dave Turner... the GPL Compliance guru at the FSF).

Why? Well my answers were sloppy and inconsistent.

This is highly disappointing to say the least... to put it in perspective, I didn't feel this bad and disappointed when SIMS rejected me the first time as a PhD student (It's not easy to get in here... mostly because we're very small.). I really enjoyed the challenge of answering and solving people's conundrums with free and open source licensing.

I can see the FSF's point, of course. They want essentially volunteer lawyers and/or law students to be able to provide precise, consistent answers to licensing queries. I am no genius and am far from brilliant. When I set out to solve a problem, it takes a number of tries and it doesn't happen immediately or fast or the right way the first time.

That can be a liability if you're the FSF and the community of free software folks around the world rely on your advice.

Still, I can't help but think that I could have done better if I had known I was on thin ice. I've never been fired from a job, ever. I like getting things done and getting them done right. I like helping people and free software is definitely one of the major forces in the world right now enabling people to help themselves and their kin.

So, I'll retreat and attempt to beef up my skills in the licensing arena... I don't know how I'll do it. There's very little short of becoming a licensing attorney that I can do... I thought about starting a wiki entitled "The Annotated GPL". Let me know if you read this and think it a worthwhile endeavor.

(licking my wounds in retreat)