Bradley Kuhn
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Bradley M. Kuhn (born 1973) is a free software activist from the United States. Kuhn is currently Policy Fellow and Hacker-in-Residence of the
Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. is an organization that provides a non-profit home and infrastructure support for free and open source software projects. The organization was established in 2006, and as of June 2022, had over 40 member pro ...
, having previously been executive director. Until 2010 he was the FLOSS Community Liaison and Technology Director of the
Software Freedom Law Center The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is an organization that provides ''pro bono'' legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen a ...
(SFLC). He previously served as the Executive Director of Free Software Foundation (FSF) from 2001 until March 2005. He was elected to the FSF's board of directors in March 2010. He is best known for his efforts in GPL enforcement, both at FSF and SFLC, as the creator of FSF's ''license list'', and as original author of the Affero General Public License. He has long been a proponent for non-profit structures for FLOSS development, and leads efforts in this direction through the Software Freedom Conservancy. He is a recipient of the 2012
O'Reilly Open Source Award The O'Reilly Media, O'Reilly Open Source Award is presented to individuals for dedication, innovation, leadership and outstanding contribution to Open-source model, open source. From 2005 to 2009 the award was known as the Google–O'Reilly Media, ...
.


Academia and early career

Kuhn attended Loyola Blakefield, followed by Loyola College in Maryland, graduating in May 1995 with a
summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Kuhn attended graduate school in Computer Science at the University of Cincinnati and received a Master of Science degree in 2001 under the direction of his graduate advisor John Franco. Kuhn received a USENIX student grant scholarship for his thesis work, which focused on dynamic interoperability of free software languages, using a port of Perl to the
Java Virtual Machine A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes ...
as an example. Larry Wall served on Kuhn's thesis committee. Kuhn's thesis showed various problems regarding the use of stack-based virtual machines for Perl, and this discovery became part of the justification for the launch of the Parrot project. Kuhn was an active participant in the Perl6 RFC Process, and headed the perl6-licensing committee during the process. The RFCs on licensing were all written by him. Kuhn taught AP Computer Science at
Walnut Hills High School , streetaddress = 3250 Victory Parkway , city = Cincinnati , state = Ohio , zipcode = 45207 , country = United States , coordinates = , type ...
for the 1998–1999 academic year, using a Linux-based lab built by the students themselves. Kuhn volunteered for the Free Software Foundation throughout graduate school, and was hired part-time as Richard Stallman's assistant in January 2000. Kuhn is seen posting to lists in his professional capacity around this time. During his early employment at the FSF, Kuhn suggested the creation of and maintained the FSF ''license list'' page, and argued against license proliferation. Kuhn was also an early and active member of the Cincinnati Linux User Group during this period, serving on its board of directors in 1998 and giving numerous presentations.


Non-profit career

Bradley Kuhn's computer science career briefly involved proprietary software development after high school. His sour experience in this area was one of his motivations for sticking with a career in non-profit work. Since graduate school, Kuhn has worked only for non-profits. He was hired full-time to work at the FSF in late 2000, and was promoted to executive director in March 2001. Kuhn launched FSF's Associate Membership campaign, formalized its GNU General Public License (GPL) enforcement efforts into the ''GPL Compliance Labs'', led FSF's response to the SCO lawsuit, authored the Affero clause of the original version of the AGPL, and taught numerous CLE classes for lawyers on the GPL. Kuhn left the FSF in March 2005 to join the founding team of the
Software Freedom Law Center The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is an organization that provides ''pro bono'' legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen a ...
with Eben Moglen and Daniel Ravicher, and subsequently established the
Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. is an organization that provides a non-profit home and infrastructure support for free and open source software projects. The organization was established in 2006, and as of June 2022, had over 40 member pro ...
in April 2006. At both the FSF and SFLC, Kuhn has been involved with all the major efforts in the United States to enforce the GPL. At SFLC, he assisted Eben Moglen, Richard Stallman, and Richard Fontana in the drafting of the GPLv3, and managed the production of the software system for the GPLv3 Comment Process, called stet. He advocated strongly for inclusion of the Affero clause in GPLv3, and then assisted with the production of the AGPLv3 after the FSF decided to write a separate Affero version of GPLv3. Prior to 2010 Kuhn was FLOSS Community Liaison and Technical Director of the
Software Freedom Law Center The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) is an organization that provides ''pro bono'' legal representation and related services to not-for-profit developers of free software/open source software. It was launched in February 2005 with Eben Moglen a ...
and was president of the
Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. is an organization that provides a non-profit home and infrastructure support for free and open source software projects. The organization was established in 2006, and as of June 2022, had over 40 member pro ...
. In October 2010 he became the Conservancy's first Executive Director. After leadership change he now serves as president and Distinguished Technologist, while Karen Sandler holds the Executive Director position In 2010 Kuhn founded the Replicant project together with Aaron Williamson, Graziano Sorbaioli and Denis ‘GNUtoo’ Carikli, aiming at replacing proprietary
Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
components with free software counterparts. Kuhn is in fact the Registrant of the Replicant.us domain. Since October 2010 Kuhn has co-hosted, with Sandler, the Free as in Freedom podcast, which covers legal, policy, and other issues in the FLOSS world. Kuhn and Sandler had previously co-hosted a similar podcast, the Software Freedom Law Show. On March 20, 2021, he received the 2020 Advancement for Free Software Award.


Poker

Kuhn is an avid
poker Poker is a family of comparing card games in which players wager over which hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, however in some places the rules may vary. While the earliest known form of the game w ...
player and played professionally on a part-time basis from 2002 to 2007. Since January 2008, he has been a contributor to PokerSource, a GPL'd online poker system written and maintained by Loïc Dachary.


References


External links


Bradley M. Kuhn's blog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuhn, Bradley M. GNU people Living people American bloggers Linux people 1973 births American atheists Free software programmers Loyola University Maryland alumni Members of the Free Software Foundation board of directors