<div class="picture-small right">  <img src="https://nextcloud.sfconservancy.org/apps/files_sharing/publicpreview/pnZYsi2CkjscLwc?file=/&fileId=24825&x=1366&y=768&a=true&etag=f4341a40f90786b0356201c21278ee23" alt="SFC lawyers posing outside at the courthouse“ " /></a>

<p>SFC lawyers posing outside the courthouse - CC BY-SA 4.0</div>

</div>

<h3 id="NewStaff">New staff!</h3>

<div data-read-more="Click more for on our new staff&hellip;">

<p>SFC hired two additional employees this year! General Counsel Rick Sanders

joins the team to help with our continued legal needs. Rick has over 20 years

experience as a intellectual-property litigator. His expertise has been

critical in helping our license compliance efforts and helping our organization

take on the increasing needs from projects and new initiatives. SFC's new

systems administrator is Paul Visscher. With over 20 years experience with

Linux and free software, Paul's belief in the power of free software to help

people engage with technology in non-exploitative ways fits in perfectly to

support our growing organizational needs and mission. Helping make sure we

can provide solid FOSS replacements to proprietary technologies for all of us.</p>

</div>

<h3 id="WritingAndSpeaking">Writing and Speaking</h3>

<div data-read-more="Find out about our writing and speaking engagements&hellip;">

<p>Our staff has been presenting and speaking about software freedom all year.

Our Executive Director Karen Sandler received an honorary doctorate from

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven for her incredible work in FOSS leadership, and

her advocacy and pursuit of software freedom and rights for all. 

In November she spoke at <a href="https://www.sfscon.it/talks/the-history-of-and-path-forward-for-copyleft-and-the-gpl/">SFSCON about "The History of, and Path forward for, Copyleft and the GPL"</a>.</p>

<video class="small-right" controls="" poster="/videos/2023-02-02_Sandler-Karen_KU-Leuven_Honorary-Doctorate_still.png" id="doctorate_vid">

  <source src="/videos/2023-02-02_Sandler-Karen_KU-Leuven_Honorary-Doctorate.mp4">

  <track src="/docs/2023-02-02_Sandler-Karen_KU-Leuven_Honorary-Doctorate.en.txt" kind="subtitles" srclang="en" label="English" />

  <track src="/docs/2023-02-02_Sandler-Karen_KU-Leuven_Honorary-Doctorate.nl.txt" kind="subtitles" srclang="nl" label="Dutch (NL)" />

  <a href="/videos/2023-02-02_Sandler-Karen_KU-Leuven_Honorary-Doctorate.mp4">Download the talk video</a>

  or <a href="https://youtu.be/zca7dOU7jfs">watch on YouTube</a>

</video>

<p>Policy Fellow Bradley M. Kuhn gave many conference talks and also represented SFC at many

government hearings and inquiries. Beginning the year at <a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2023/schedule/speaker/bradley_m_kuhn/">FOSDEM</a>,

Bradley (and Karen) led the Legal and Policy DevRoom. He then spoke at SCaLE

20x giving a talk titled <a href="https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale/20x/presentations/learning-big-failures-improve-foss-advocacy-and-adoption">Learning From the Big Failures To Improve FOSS Advocacy and Adoption</a>.

As a panel member, he was the only representative for the FOSS community on

the FTC's discussion <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2023/oct/04/ftc-ai-panel/">“Creative Economy and Generative AI“</a></p>

<p>Our Director of Compliance, Denver Gingerich, spoke at SFSCON talking about what it's really like to <a href="https://www.sfscon.it/talks/how-do-you-really-do-gpl-enforcement/">enforce the GPL</a>. His talk at FOSSY titled <a href="https://2023.fossy.us/schedule/presentation/84/">You don't carry a phone?! Improving societal acceptance of abnormal people</a>

was one of the most talked about from our own conference.

Pono represented SFC at <a href="https://www.socallinuxexpo.org/scale/19x">SCaLE

19x</a> and <a href="https://seagl.org">SeaGL</a>, which was great to be back

at community centered conferences.

SFC staffers also participate in key meetings to represent community interests

in a variety of FOSS related discussions concerning security, governmental use

of FOSS and in critical infrastructure discussions and also presented in

classroom to educate students about software freedom.</p>

<div class="picture-small right">

  <img class="small-right" src="/img/outreachy-nigeria-1000-celebration.png"

alt="Group Picture: Outreachy interns, mentors, and community coordinators gathered to celebrate the 1,000 interns milestone in Lagos, Nigeria." />

  <p>Group Picture: Outreachy interns, mentors, and community coordinators gathered to celebrate the 1,000 interns milestone in Lagos, Nigeria.</p>

</div>

from all 17 years of its history came out to be in community with each other.

may</a>. Attendance from over 10 countries, it was an incredible reunion for