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📝 Page Status: Draft — sourced but not yet reviewed

  • Status: draft
  • Sources: 2
  • Relationships: 4
  • Research debt items: 4
  • Last verified: 2026-06-25

Eben Moglen

Summary

Eben Moglen is a professor of law at Columbia Law School and founding director of the Software Freedom Law Center, who served as general counsel to the Free Software Foundation and was heavily involved in drafting the GNU General Public License version 3.

Verified Facts

  • The official Columbia Law School faculty page identifies Moglen as Professor of Law with areas of study in Intellectual Property, Technology, and Legal History.
  • The Columbia Data Science Institute profile states Moglen served as general counsel to the Free Software Foundation since 1994.
  • Moglen was an FSF board member from 2000 to 2007.
  • As FSF counsel, Moglen was charged with enforcing the GPL on behalf of the FSF and later became heavily involved in drafting GPL version 3.
  • Moglen founded the Software Freedom Law Center in February 2005.
  • He worked as a designer of advanced computer programming languages at IBM from 1979 to 1985.
  • In 1991 he represented Philip Zimmermann, the developer of PGP, when Zimmermann was threatened with prosecution for distributing strong encryption as free software.
  • Moglen received the EFF Pioneer Award in 2003.

Relevance to Open Source and Software Companies

Moglen is one of the most significant legal figures in the free software and open source world. His work drafting GPL v3, enforcing the GPL, defending PGP encryption distribution, and founding SFLC to provide pro bono legal services to open source projects makes him a key resource for any software company navigating open source licensing or facing threats related to code distribution.

Relationships

  • PERSON-EBEN-MOGLEN cites SRC-MOGLEN-COLUMBIA.
  • PERSON-EBEN-MOGLEN cites SRC-MOGLEN-DSI.
  • PERSON-EBEN-MOGLEN affiliated_with ORG-SFLC.
  • PERSON-EBEN-MOGLEN affiliated_with ORG-FSF.

Sources

Research Debt

  • Add details on Zimmermann/PGP defense outcomes.
  • Document role in FreedomBox Foundation (founded 2011).
  • Add more detail on GPL enforcement cases.
  • Document current SFLC intake process for projects needing legal help.