Hi Folks, We're lucky enough to have a surprise visit to Melbourne from Brett Smith of the Free Software Foundation. He's kindly offered to give a public talk next Monday 5 March. Details below. We'd love to see you there! Regards, Ben Sturmfels Brett Smith from the Free Software Foundation Public lecture: Free Software and the Law 5 March, 2012, 6 pm Theatre 1, Alan Gilbert Building, corner of Grattan and Barry Streets, University of Melbourne, Carlton (subject to change). http://apps.freesoftware.asn.au/invite/brett-smith-fsf/ This talk will introduce free software, explain why it's important, and explore the many places where free software interacts with the law. Brett Smith will illustrate how copyright, licenses, patents, trade agreements, and other laws all play a role in deciding whether and how we can create, use, and share free software — and by extension, who controls our computers. Members of the public are welcome. No technical knowledge is required. Brett Smith is visiting Melbourne to speak with government negotiators about the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and the impact on free software. Since we may need to change to a different lecture theater due to the late notice, please register at the above link. We'll confirm the venue by 12pm Monday 5 March. About Brett Smith ----------------- Brett is a GPL Ninja. He works in the Free Software Foundation's Licensing Compliance Lab, as license compliance engineer. Brett answers complex licensing questions from the public, writes widely read and timely posts for the FSF's blogs, codes up Python programs, and dashes across the country to give input to policy makers. Brett also ran the GPL version 3 drafting process. Proprietary software companies love to talk about how they hire "ninjas." Well, free software has ninjas too! About the Free Software Foundation ----------------------------------- The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at <http://donate.fsf.org>. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.