Brad Templeton
Encyclopedia
Brad Templeton is a software architect, civil rights advocate and entrepreneur. He graduated from the University of Waterloo
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...

.

Templeton is considered one of the early luminaries of Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...

, and in 1989 founded ClariNet Communications Corporation, which used Usenet protocols to distribute news articles, one of the first commercial examples of electronic publishing
Electronic publishing
Electronic publishing or ePublishing includes the digital publication of e-books and electronic articles, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. Electronic publishing has become common in scientific publishing where it has been argued that peer-reviewed scientific journals are in...

. In his "Net History in Brief" post, he coined the phrase Imminent death of net predicted.
He also founded Looking Glass Software (not the same company as Looking Glass Studios
Looking Glass Studios
Looking Glass Studios was a computer game development company during the 1990s.The company originally formed as Looking Glass Technologies, when Blue Sky Productions and Lerner Research merged....

), and was involved in the development of a number of software packages.

He was the Chairman of the Board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...

 for ten years until February 2010, when he relinquished his tenure to John Buckman
John Buckman
John Buckman is founder of Magnatune, a Berkeley, California-based record label he founded in 2003 and which is known for its commercial application of Creative Commons licensing and overtly artist-friendly business practices...

. Brad remains on the Board of the EFF. He created the Usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...

 newsgroup [news://rec.humor.funny rec.humor.funny] in 1987 and moderated it from 1987 to 1992. To Commodore
Commodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...

 users he's probably best known for Power and the assembler PAL.

Templeton is widely known in the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 and legal community for writing about political and social issues related to computing and networks. One of the most frequently-cited works on Internet copyright law is his 10 Big Myths of Copyright Explained. He is known on the rec.arts.comics usenet
Usenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...

 hierarchy as being one of the few group founders who never went out of their way to run new posters off. Templeton also is the one who coined the term "spamigation
Spamigation
Spamigation is mass litigation conducted to intimidate large numbers of people. The term was coined by Brad Templeton of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to explain the tactics of the Recording Industry Association of America , which files large numbers of lawsuits against individuals for file...

", which means massive litigations undertaken solely for the purpose of harassing and intimidating the defendants.

On a lighter note, Templeton also created the character of "Emily Postnews" in his Usenet posting "Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
Netiquette
Netiquette is a set of social conventions that facilitate interaction over networks, ranging from Usenet and mailing lists to blogs and forums. These rules were described in IETF RFC 1855. However, like many Internet phenomena, the concept and its application remain in a state of flux, and vary...

", a tongue-in-cheek list of all the things one should not do when using Usenet. The name "Emily Postnews" is a double pun, referring first to Emily Post
Emily Post
Emily Post was an American author famous for writing on etiquette.-Background:Post was born as Emily Price in Baltimore, Maryland, into privilege as the only daughter of architect Bruce Price and his wife Josephine Lee Price of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania...

, a self-appointed expert on social etiquette and second, to the postnews program, an early piece of Usenet client software. The full text can be found on Brad Templeton's homepage here.

Family

Templeton is the son of Charles Templeton
Charles Templeton
Charles Bradley Templeton was a Canadian cartoonist, evangelist, agnostic, politician, newspaper editor, inventor, broadcaster and author. He was born and died in the same city, Toronto, Canada...

 and Sylvia Murphy
Sylvia Murphy
Sylvia Murphy was a popular singer on radio and television programs on the CBC in Canada from 1950 to 1964. Born in Montreal she got her start in nightclubs, and then was the featured singer on the radio programs Coca-Cola Refreshment Time and Club O'Connor...

, and the brother of Ty Templeton
Ty Templeton
Ty Templeton is a popular Canadian comic book artist and writer who has drawn a number of popular mainstream titles, TV-associated titles and his own series.-Biography:Templeton was born on May 9, 1962...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK