Mike Linksvayer is an intellectual freedom and commons proponent, known as a technology entrepreneur, developer and activist from co-founding
Bitzi and leadership of
Creative Commons
Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
.
He is
GitHub
GitHub () is a Proprietary software, proprietary developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage, and share their code. It uses Git to provide distributed version control and GitHub itself provides access control, bug trackin ...
's Vice President of Policy.
Biography
Linksvayer holds a
B.A.
A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...
in
economics
Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services.
Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...
and has worked as a
chief technical officer,
vice president
A vice president or vice-president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vi ...
,
manager
Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...
,
software developer
Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...
and
consultant
A consultant (from "to deliberate") is a professional (also known as ''expert'', ''specialist'', see variations of meaning below) who provides advice or services in an area of specialization (generally to medium or large-size corporations). Cons ...
.
He joined Creative Commons as
CTO in April 2003,
and held that position until April 2007 when he became vice president.
He also co-founded
p2p file sharing company
Bitzi, well known for its invention of
magnet links.
Former executive director of Creative Commons, Glenn Otis Brown, noted that Mike Linksvayer brought much-needed stability to the organization, comparing his role to that of a
drummer
A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums.
Most contemporary western music ensemble, bands that play Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, or Contemporary R&B, R&B music include a drummer for purposes including timekeepi ...
in a
band
Band or BAND may refer to:
Places
*Bánd, a village in Hungary
* Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran
* Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania
* Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, ...
.
Linksvayer encouraged
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
to use public
APIs to share its data, which is already in
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
as government works. He also suggested that scientists and other planetary societies use
Creative Commons licenses
A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bui ...
to disseminate photos and other works so that the public has better access.
Following his tenure as vice president, in April 2012 Linksvayer became a part-time Senior Fellow at Creative Commons.
[ Linksvayer also serves on the boards of OpenHatch and ]Software Freedom Conservancy
Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. (also known as "Conservancy") is an organization that provides a Nonprofit organization, non-profit home, infrastructure support, and legal support for free software, free and open source software projects. The ...
and chairs the Open Definition Advisory Council.
Since 2015, Linksvayer has been GitHub's Director of Policy, addressing public policy issues.
Writing
Linksvayer speaks internationally and writes broadly. On January 30, 2015 he co-authored a whitepaper, "Towards a Design Space for a Commons Provenance System" with Tessa Askamp, Paul Keller, Catharina Maracke, and Maarten Zeinstra.
In 2012, he wrote an essay in the essay collection, ''The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State'', edited by David Bollier. He contributed to Jono Bacon's O'Reilly
O'Reilly () is a common Irish surname. The O'Reillys were historically the kings of East Bréifne in what is today County Cavan. The clan were part of the Connachta's Uí Briúin Bréifne kindred and were closely related to the Ó Ruairc ( ...
book, ''The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation'' and also wrote "Using and Sharing Data: the Black Letter, Fine Print, and Reality" for ''The Data Journalism Handbook''. In 2010 he co-authored with Aleksandar Erkalovic, Adam Hyde, Michael Mandiberg, Marta Peirano, Sissu Tarka, Astra Taylor, Alan Toner, and Mushon Zer-Aviv, Collaborative Futures using the novel Booksprint method of producing and releasing an entire book in a week.
In 2009, Linksvayer contributed an essay "Free Culture in Relation to Software Freedom" to FSCONS
Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit (FSCONS) is a Nordic conference trying to bridge the gap between software and cultural freedom held each autumn in Gothenburg, Sweden. It shares many similarities with FOSDEM (Free and Open source Software ...
''Free Beer'', edited by Stian Rødven Eide.
In 2008, while at Creative Commons, Linksvayer co-authored a technical document with Ben Adida, Hal Abelson, and Nathan Yergler, "ccREL: The Creative Commons Rights Expression Language."
Personal life
Mike Linksvayer is a vegan
Veganism is the practice of abstaining from the use of animal products and the consumption of animal source foods, and an associated philosophy that rejects the commodity status of animals. A person who practices veganism is known as a ve ...
and follows a low-calorie diet. He was featured in a news story carried by a number of sources suggesting that calorie-restricted diets may extend life span.
References
External links
*
World Intellectual Freedom Organization
{{DEFAULTSORT:Linksvayer, Mike
Living people
Creative Commons
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni
American chief technology officers
Year of birth missing (living people)
GitHub people