17 Facts About Eben Moglen

Eben Moglen was born on July 13,1959 and is an American legal scholar who is professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, and is the founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center.

Eben Moglen has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, Tel Aviv University and the University of Virginia since 1987.

Eben Moglen was a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Eben Moglen joined the faculty of Columbia Law School in 1987, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1988.

Eben Moglen serves as a director of the Public Patent Foundation.

Eben Moglen was part of Philip Zimmermann's defense team, when Zimmermann was being investigated over the export of Pretty Good Privacy, a public key encryption system, under US export laws.

Eben Moglen was closely involved with the Free Software Foundation, serving as general counsel from 1994 to 2016 and board member from 2000 to 2007.

Eben Moglen stated that after the GPLv3 Discussion Draft 3 had been released, he wanted to devote more time to writing, teaching, and the Software Freedom Law Center.

In February 2011, Eben Moglen created the Freedom Box Foundation to design software for a very small server called the FreedomBox.

In October 2023 the Free Software Foundation Europe and Software Freedom Conservancy announced their intention to end their cooperation with the Software Freedom Law Center and with Eben Moglen following allegations of abusive behaviour towards employees and community members.

Eben Moglen says that free software is a fundamental requirement for a democratic and free society in which we are surrounded by and dependent upon technical devices.

Eben Moglen believes the idea of proprietary software is as ludicrous as having "proprietary mathematics" or "proprietary geometry".

Eben Moglen has criticized what he calls the "reification of selfishness".

Eben Moglen has criticized trends which result in "excluding people from knowledge".

Eben Moglen calls for a "sensible respect for both the creators and users" of software code.

In general, this concept is a part of what Eben Moglen has termed a "revolution" against the privileged owners of media, distribution channels, and software.

On March 13,2009, in a speech given at Seattle University, Eben Moglen said of the free software movement that, 'When everybody owns the press, then freedom of the press belongs to everybody' seems to be the inevitable inference, and that's where we are moving, and when the publishers get used to that, they'll become us, and we'll become them, and the first amendment will mean: 'Congress shall make no law.