Moglen started out as a computer programming language designer[1] and then received his bachelor's degree from Swarthmore College in 1980.

Moglen was closely involved with the Free Software Foundation, serving as general counsel from 1994 to 2016 and board member from 2000 to 2007.

On April 23, 2007 he announced in a blog post that he would be stepping down from the board of directors of the Free Software Foundation.

Moglen stated that after the GPLv3 Discussion Draft 3 had been released, he wanted to devote more time to writing, teaching, and the Software Freedom Law Center.

[5] In February 2011, Moglen created the Freedom Box Foundation to design software for a very small server called the FreedomBox.

The FreedomBox aims to be an affordable personal server which runs only free software, with a focus on anonymous and secure communication.

[citation needed] Moglen's Metaphorical Corollary to Faraday's Law is the idea that the information appearance and flow between the human minds connected via the Internet works like electromagnetic induction.

In general, this concept is a part of what Moglen has termed a "revolution" against the privileged owners of media, distribution channels, and software.