Wow. That's quite an impressive description! :-) -bawolff On 2013-02-19 7:36 PM, "Sumana Harihareswara" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Luis is also a developer so I wanted you to hear about this. :-) > > -Sumana > > > -------- Original Message -------- > Subject: [Wmfall] Luis Villa joins WMF as Deputy General Counsel > Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:02:07 -0800 > From: Geoff Brigham <[email protected]> > To: Staff All <[email protected]> > > *Hi everyone, * > * * > *I’m simply thrilled to welcome Luis Villa to the Foundation as our new > Deputy General Counsel.* > * > Thanks to Kat Walsh, I met Luis during my first months at the Foundation. > Kat loves Luis, and it is no wonder why. In addition to being a superb > lawyer, Luis is an open source developer, has worked with leaders in our > Internet legal circles, and has a great personality that embraces our > culture.* > * > His most recent adventure took place at the Palo Alto office of Greenberg > Traurig, one of the top global law firms. There he worked with well-known > Internet lawyers like Ian Ballon and Heather Meeker. Luis focused on > technology transactions, helping clients create solutions to licensing > problems, with a particular emphasis on open source and software standards. > His clients included Mozilla, the Open Compute Project, and a variety of > clients large and small. Luis successfully defended Google in the > Oracle-Google/Android lawsuit, primarily working on the question of API > copyrightability. I hired Luis as outside counsel to work on a tough legal > matter for us, and his answers were on point, clear, and practical. * > * > Luis’ first contact with free software came was when he was in college at > Duke University. There he studied political science and computer science, > began using Linux, and helped triage Mozilla's bugzilla. A professor paid > him to play with Lego, resulting in brief maintainership of the GPL’d LegOS > operating system and co-authorship of the book "Extreme Mindstorms". * > * > After graduation, Luis worked at Ximian, a Linux desktop startup, doing > quality assurance and eventually managing the desktop team. As part of > that, he got heavily involved in the GNOME desktop project, becoming > bugmaster and then getting elected to the board of directors. After Ximian > was acquired, Luis became "geek in residence" at Harvard Law School's > Berkman Center. At Berkman, he translated from lawyer to geek, and managed, > maintained, and developed several software projects.* > * > After Berkman, Luis started his legal ventures in life at Columbia Law > School, where he was Editor in Chief of the Science and Technology Law > Review, was awarded honors each year, and was co-recipient of the class > prize for excellence in intellectual property scholarship. His thesis dealt > with the use of software standards as part of antitrust enforcement. > Outside of class, he participated in the GPL revision process, worked in > the General Counsel's office at Red Hat, and developed a surprisingly > strong attachment to New York City.* > * > After law school, Luis worked in the legal department at Mozilla, where his > major project was revising the Mozilla Public License. The license got over > a thousand words shorter, and gained stronger patent protections and > compatibility with the Apache and GPL licenses. Luis also worked on > privacy, contracts, standards bodies, and other issues.* > * > Outside of work, Luis is an invited expert to the World Wide Web > Consortium's Patents and Standards Interest Group, and a board member and > chair of the Licensing Committee at the Open Source Initiative. He also > enjoys biking, photography, history, Duke basketball (men's and women's), > and eating.* > * > Luis's first Wikipedia edit under his current user name dates to Feb. 2007. > Like any good pedant, he has also been making minor spelling and grammar > corrections anonymously for many years.* > * > So, as you can tell, we are extremely excited about having Luis on our team > and wish him a warm welcome. * > * * > *Cheers, * > * * > *Geoff* > > -- > Geoff Brigham > General Counsel > Wikimedia Foundation > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
