Karen Sandler

Karen Sandler
Karen Sandler at FSCONS 2013 in Gothenburg.
Occupation	Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy
Website	punkrocklawyer.com

Karen Sandler is the executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, former executive director of the GNOME Foundation, an attorney, and former general counsel of the Software Freedom Law Center.

As of March 2014, Sandler is executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy.

From June 2011 to March 2014, Sandler served as executive director of the GNOME Foundation. Under her leadership, GNOME embarked on an ambitious project to draw more women into Free and Open Source software, the Outreach Program for Women.

Between October 31, 2005 and June 21, 2011 she worked at the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), first as counsel, and then as the organization's General Counsel after January 6, 2010.

While at the SFLC, Sandler advised a wide range of free and open source software organizations such as the Free Software Foundation, the Apache Software Foundation, the X.Org Foundation, Software in the Public Interest and the Software Freedom Conservancy. With SFLC, she became a public speaker about issues of Free and Open Source software at conferences such as OSCON, SCaLE, and LinuxCon. In 2010, she led an initiative advocating for free software on implantable medical devices after exploring the issues surrounding the software on her own implanted medical device (a defibrillator), which regulates an inherited heart condition.