Henry Poole is a technologist and social entrepreneur, CEO of

CivicActions CivicActions, Inc. is a services firm that provides technological support with a focus on free and open-source software to agencies. History CivicActions was founded as an Llc in 2004. Their focus was to provide hosted FOSS group forming ...

and Board Member of the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)#501(c)(3), 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

. He co-founded one of the first digital agencies, Vivid Studios, in 1993. That year, he served as technical editor for the book, ''Demystifying Multimedia''. In 1994, he led a project to study the social interactions and use of technology for the

WELL A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

community. In 1995, his firm managed the online launch of Microsoft

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

(the largest online technology product introduction of this time). In 2000, Poole joined as CEO of French Linux publisher

MandrakeSoft Mandriva S.A. was a public software company specializing in Linux and open-source software. Its corporate headquarters was in Paris, and it had development centers in Metz, France and Curitiba, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A. was the developer and maint ...

. In 2001, Poole founded the first openSAAS enterprise, Affero, Inc. and in 2002, published the

Affero General Public License The Affero General Public License (Affero GPL and informally Affero License) is a free software license. The first version of the Affero General Public License (AGPLv1), was published by Affero, Inc. in March 2002, and based on the GNU General Pu ...

, version 1. Poole joined the board of the Free Software Foundation in December 2002. In 2003, Poole managed the digital team for Kucinich for US President and in 2004, founded government digital services firm CivicActions. In May 2006, Poole and the Free Software Foundation launched the anti-DRM campaign,

Defective by Design Defective by Design (DBD) is an anti-DRM initiative by the Free Software Foundation. Digital rights management (DRM) technology restricts users' ability to freely use their purchased movies, music, literature, software, and hardware in ways the ...

. A software freedom activist, Poole has organized fundraisers for Dmitry Sklyarov and the Free Software Foundation. He is a signatory to the 9/11 Truth Statement.

References

External links

Henry Poole
CivicActions Bio
Berkeley Technophiles Launch Campaign Software RevolutionPresidential Campaigning at the EdgeThe Affero GPL: Closing the Distribution LoopholeFamed Berkeley Home Hosts Kucinich E-campaignLinuxPlanet Interview: Trust Unlimited
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080423024249/http://specials.ft.com/ftit/march2001/FT3K9QDYWJC.html Financial Times: Building communities on the internetbr>BusinessWeek: Yankee, We Want You. Yankee, Go Home
Members of the Free Software Foundation board of directors GNU people Year of birth missing (living people) Living people {{compu-bio-stub