Addendum: What the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) Really Is
Not serum free light chains (SFLC) but "Software Freedom Law Center", which is under attack from a copycat that asks for donations and makes no use of them
THE FSF (the real thing*) has just passed $307,000 in memberships/donations, so it's still increasing by about $15,000 per day and can probably reach the target ($400,000) by month's end. What better sign of endorsement for its current composition, which is diverse demographically and geographically (Europe, global south et cetera and 50% female)...
The FSF's financial lifeblood, however, has been under attack by the same group that did this to SFLC (GPL pioneer) by imitating it, even by name. As an associate put it: "Since the SFC has had an article [1, 2] perhaps it would be appropriate to have one or more articles promoting the SFLC. One goal would be to distinguish them (I know which is which, but the SFC's name was clearly chosen to sow confusion)."
So what exactly is SFLC? Don't check the Microsoft- and Bill Gates-sponsored Wikipedia (a catalogue of advertisements these days). Check what the SFLC says in its official site and list of staff. Staff at the moment is only one person, Eben Moglen. The 2024 IRS material suggests there's also Tanisha Madrid Batista (Chief Operating Officer), who gets paid more than Professor Moglen. He's a well known personality, a lawyer who can code, and who moreover says: "In addition to his work with free software developers, Professor Moglen has advised major IT companies and national governments around the world."
Some vicious Microsoft-funded trolls (seemingly anti-Semites too) try to tarnish his name to make it harder for him to advise "national governments around the world."
He has been doing this for many decades. He's not some new opportunist who shows up near the finishing line.
This past year was good for these people (financially at least). After losing $191,468 in 2023 (also lost money in 2022 and 2021) they earned $224,952 (last year):
Mishi Choudhary (Senior Counsel) left a couple of years ago. That reduced the expenses by quite a lot. She moved into the private sector and we wrote a lot about it at the time.
Unlike SFC, the SFLC (the real thing) isn't stacking almost 10,000,000 dollars in the bank, it keeps a modest sum of $403k (2024) in "total asset", up from almost zero in recent years.
FSF-EEE and SFC coordinated an attack on the public face of the original organisation (SFLC). Their goal is to bankrupt SFLC and steal its clients. █
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* A reader said our first writing about FSFE or FSF-EEE was in "good timing". "Though I might style the FSFe as FSFEEE so that the FSF part does not stand out so much..."