FOSS outside of corporations

Presented by

• 

  Karen Sandler
  

  Karen M. Sandler is an attorney and the executive director of Software Freedom Conservancy, a 501c3 nonprofit organization focused on ethical technology. As a patient deeply concerned with the technology in her own body, Karen is known as a cyborg lawyer for her advocacy for free software as a life-or-death issue, particularly in relation to the software on medical devices. She co-organizes Outreachy, the award-winning outreach program for people who face under-representation, systemic bias, or discrimination in tech. She is an adjunct Lecturer-In-Law of Columbia Law School and a visiting scholar at University of California Santa Cruz. Prior to joining Software Freedom Conservancy, Karen was the executive director of the GNOME Foundation. Before that, she was the general counsel of the Software Freedom Law Center. She began her career as a lawyer at Clifford Chance and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Karen received her law degree from Columbia Law School where she was a James Kent Scholar and co-founder of the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review. She also holds a bachelor of science in engineering from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Sandler has won awards for her work on behalf of software freedom, including the O’Reilly Open Source Award in 2011. She received an honorary doctorate from KU Leuven in 2023.

• 

  John Sullivan
  https://alliterativeadvising.com

  John Sullivan is an independent free software activist and consultant (Alliterative Advising LLC), with specialties in communication, community organizing, licensing, fundraising, strategic planning, and nonprofit governance. He is a Debian Developer, and member of its keyring team. He is also a board member of F-Droid, and currently its vice chair. Previously, he worked for the Free Software Foundation for over nineteen years, including two as its union steward and eleven as its executive director. Prior to the FSF, John worked as a speech and debate instructor for Harvard, University of Kentucky, and Michigan State University, coaching undergraduates and high school students on public speaking, research, and critical thinking. He holds an MFA in Writing and Poetics from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics (which is real) at Naropa University, and a BA in Philosophy from Michigan State, but he has been spending too much time with computers and online communities since running a 1990s BBS on his Commodore 64. Also he co-owns a pen store.

• 

  Kate Chapman
  

• 

  Rosy Schechter
  

• 

  Sriram Ramkrishna
  @sramkrishna
  https://linkedin.com/in/sriram-ramkrishna

  Sri is a Free and Open Source advocate for over 25 years. Sri started working on open source software when he was 25 contributing to the GNOME project in 1997. 15 years later, he was given the opportunity to work on open source professionally at Intel Corporation in 2012. While his career has gone through many iterations his contributions to the GNOME project has been consistent - building community around projects and engaging with community. His passion today is to help build the Linux Application Ecosystem through initiatives like the Linux App Summit. Professionally, Sri is the senior community manager for oneAPI and the lead coordinator of Intel's Software Innovator Program.