From c27c3d8d55e2ef8022be0ad978382c64f91075c7 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Daniel Pono Takamori Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2022 10:33:22 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] update YearInReview for 2022 fundraiser --- .../templates/supporter/index.html | 385 ++++++++---------- 1 file changed, 171 insertions(+), 214 deletions(-) diff --git a/www/conservancy/templates/supporter/index.html b/www/conservancy/templates/supporter/index.html index a076c5be..b4460938 100644 --- a/www/conservancy/templates/supporter/index.html +++ b/www/conservancy/templates/supporter/index.html @@ -80,183 +80,205 @@

Our Year in Review

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This past year we've all grown more conscious of our interconnected world. - These events escalate the importance of free software tools that empower - us all. Closed source and proprietary tools have overtaken many - communication channels — particularly when we work from home. Even - conferences and lecture series dedicated to “open source - infrastructure” have been unable to escape the grasp of these closed - systems. As we monitored these diffcult events, we prioritized support for - those in our community that understand the crucial need - for conferences run - solely with free software. We have been pleased to support free - communication tools to assist with these efforts. Our commitment to - using, developing, and supporting free software tools and communities has - never been stronger.

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We are proud to tell you about the important work we've accomplished over +the past 12 months. Software Freedom Conservancy continues to set the bar for +promoting ethical technology and advocacy for software freedom. Whether it's +continuing the tireless and incredibly important work of copyleft compliance, +growing and working with our many member projects, or +leading the way in promoting diversity and inclusion efforts with Outreachy and The Institute for Computing in +Research. This year was no different in showing our dedication to software +freedom and critiques of those who oppose it.

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We are entering the second year of our lawsuit against Vizio. +While there's a long way to go in this groundbreaking suit, we've already +attained an initial historic victory +in succeeding to remand the case back from federal to state court. +We've been grateful to see so much support from our Sustainers and communities +around the promise our case holds for consumer rights. With the rise of the Right to Repair movement, we've seen a +growing desire from "everyday consumers" to have the ability to repair the +software on their phones and other internet connected devices. Our projects +like OpenWrt and coreboot are integral in giving people the +freedom to choose what software runs (and can be repaired) on their own +devices. (And speaking of our projects, there's a highlight of what some of +projects did this year below!) We also pursued many other violations (that our +Principles +don't permit us to disclose at the moment) and launched a self-service +copyright assignment form so that FOSS contributors can, without overly +burdensome paperwork, entrust their copyrights to a nonprofit dedicated to +software freedom and rights of users all over the world.

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Over the past year, we took on new work that would have - been impossible without your support. Last month, we filed - a lawsuit against long time license violator Vizio. - Through that lawsuit and many non-litigation ongoing license enforcement - actions, Software Freedom Conservancy leads the field: We stand up for - license compliance and holding corporation accountable when others - won't. Our focus in software licensing defends consumer rights. This novel and - critical approach to license compliance culminates years of effort by our amazing policy and legal experts. We - believe software freedom, when properly and actively upheld, enables everyone to hold - technology providers accountable to the people most - impacted by their actions.

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As software based technology becomes more pervasive in our lives, it's vital +that we communicate the importance of software freedom to the wider population. +In that vein we've created a video +(narrated by our Executive Director Karen Sandler) that introduces +the ideas of software freedom, and specifically what Software Freedom +Conservancy does. We also did a lot of public writings about some of the +important issues this year. From interesting legal developments +to political outreach +as well as leading a conversation +standing up for developers and distributors of free software.

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This year, we filed more DMCA exemption requests than any organization in - the country — - and we won on - every single one. We clarified the right to jailbreak of routers (an - essential activity of our OpenWrt - project), won a new right to safely investigate devices for license - compliance, and helped solidify privacy-related research. Karen (our - executive director) also participated with a coalition that achieved yet - another exemption for medical devices! Our lawyer, Pam Chestek, testified at the DMCA - hearings on these exemptions, and confronted industry lobbyists directly as - they sought to use their extreme - wealth and legal power to harm consumers. We stridently fight their overreach — one bit at a time.

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+ Thumbnail of video showing a tree and Software Freedom +
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As software based technology becomes more pervasive in our lives, it's vital +that we communicate the importance of software freedom to the wider population. +In that vein we've created a video +(narrated by our Executive Director Karen Sandler) that introduces +the ideas of software freedom, and specifically what Software Freedom +Conservancy does. We also did a lot of public writings about some of the +important issues this year. From interesting legal developments +to political outreach +as well as leading a conversation +standing up for developers and distributors of free software.

+ +

We also started a campaign to Give Up +GitHub. With more and more corporate interest and investment into FOSS, +we see a trend of community resources being bought up and controlled by +singular corporate entities. Having lived through multiple acquisitions and +extinctions of gratis code forges before, GitHub is just the most recent holder +of the title. Contrary to it's namesake project, git +GitHub remains a proprietary, centralized +and hierarchical method of working on software. Stripping the underlying power +and versatility that has allowed it to become the canonical tool for +distributed software development. A single corporation controlling this piece +of critical infrastructure is clearly a harmful idea, a corporation will always +serve it's shareholders and not the community that it depends on growing and +keeping within it's walled garden. Please check out our blog post +about the issue to find alternatives and other ways you can help this +divestment effort.

Highlights from some of our projects

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Software Freedom Conservancy helped our projects engage in critical work - this year. Overall, we raised, administered and facilitated $1.7 million - to improve software freedom — this year alone! Those funds - go directly to fund FOSS - contributors. We do the arduous work to sustain these FOSS communities:

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For the second year in a row, we've raised, administered and/or + facilitated $1.7 million to improve software freedom directly! This + includes contractors, interns and students, administrators, and grants + for creation, distribution and maintenance of free software projects. + Part of the unique position of our organization is the expertise + necessary to do this kind of work.

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We helped Outreachy expand to its largest cohorts ever. Our last -round accepted 71 interns, and we announced this week that the current round - will have 62! (That's 133 interns — an 27% growth from the previous two -rounds!) We're grateful to be able support Outreachy to serve more -communities who are committed to helping to push back against systemic -underrepresentation in technology and software.

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Outreachy accepted 61 interns in the December 2021 cohort, and 67 interns in +the May 2022 cohort with over 30 Free and Open Source software communities. +Bringing in new communities in the Open Science and Humanitarian spheres, +Outreachy continues to lead the way in providing opportunities to historically +excluded and under represented people in technology. With over 900 interns +accepted to the program to date, Outreachy continues to grow and expand it's +community. Outreachy also hired a new community manager, Omotola Omotayo. +Having recently won an +award at the She Code Africa Summit, her work building up and promoting the +Outreachy community has been immensely successful. Outreachy increased the +stipend it pays its interns this year, improved its documentation and held many +more opportunities for interns and applicants to learn about Outreachy, FOSS +and how to successfully engage in the tech industry.

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Godot has continued to push the boundary of what anyone thought was - possible with an open source game engine. Godot's impressive team, funded - through contracts with Software Freedom Conservancy, continues to building - their community and their excellent codebase. We are so proud of their beneficial - focus on community. Watch - their fun, exciting, - and brand - new showreel to see what these cutting edge creators are making.

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A few of our projects put on or are planning to put on conferences. Git +Merge was held in Chicago in September. It provided a great face to face space +for the international group of developers to come together, decide on some +technical directions and have other conversations that are greatly sped up by +in person meeting. WineConf was held simultaneously with the X.Org developer's +conference and FOSS XR in Minneapolis the first week of October. The twelfth RacketCon was run at the end of +October. Reproducible Builds had their summit in the beginning of November in +Venice. We're also working with the Selenium project on their upcoming conference +March 28-30 2023.

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Software Freedom Conservancy also proudly supports, with direct funding of - contributors, the Reproducible Builds team. They ensure the - security of computer systems of all shapes and sizes around the world. - This necessary and vital project becomes even more essential in the age of - direct attacks on technological - infrastructure. The tools - they've made are freely available to help others increase - reproducibility in their own projects.

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OpenWrt just released version 22.03.02 +which added some more hardware support and fixed security bugs. This 22.03 +release had some major changes like moving from iptables to nftables, adding +over 180 new devices to support over 1580 total devices! Some great quality of +life enhancements like dark mode in LuCL (Pono, who's the primary author of +this text, was really happy about this one) and they've solved Year 2038 +problem which if you remember Y2K, is a sigh of relief to not scramble to +patch.

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OpenWrt recently had their OpenWrt 21.02 release — which - increases the default security options including optional SELinux - and ASLR. - OpenWrt empowers users to run a free - operating system on their routers. Combined with our DMCA exemption, - the landscape of free firmware is now much easier to explore and - deploy. Meanwhile, another of our projects, coreboot, has further grown the supported hardware - list for freeing your bootloader. These two projects are at the core of - our firmware - liberation initiative. As our work continues, more companies will learn - what most router companies already know: consumers - prefer hardware that can run copylefted software and — contrary to - popular belief — will gladly pay more for hardware that - respects their rights and freedoms!

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The Institute for Computing in +Research completed it's first round in Austin, Texas. Now providing +training, education and real world software experience to high school students +in 3 cities and exploring additional cities that may join next summer. These +research internships are a great way for high school students to get involved +in real academic research while also being exposed to the ideas and principles +of software freedom.

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And in a happy close of a member project relationship, Godot +has graduated from Conservancy +to start its own foundation. +Our relationship with Godot was built on a shared +passion for community building in the free software space and we expect this +will continue as they grow into their own. Modeling their governance on the +system that we built together here are Conservancy, we are extremely proud of +what they have become and expect great things to come out of their new +organization and look forward to continue our relationship in an advisory +capacity.

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The Institute for Computing in Research has furthered its mission. - After two successful rounds of interns in Santa Fe, New Mexico, - ICR - expanded its intern cohort to include a selection of six high school - students in Portland, Oregon. These unique paid internships introduce high - school students to software freedom as part of a summer research position - that focuses on introducing young scholars to computing in areas of - physical science, life science, social science, arts, and - humanities. Supported by academics at Portland State University, Reed - College, and Oregon State University, the cohort in Portland has projects - in computational biology, natural language processing, pure math, and AI - and game theory.

New staff!

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At the end of last year, we - hired Sage Sharp as - Senior Director of Diversity & Inclusion; they about to complete their - first year with us. Meanwhile, finishing up his first six months - is Daniel - Pono Takamori, our Community Organizer & Non-Profit Problem - Solver. These two are very welcome additions to our team of just five - full-time employees, and one part-time employee. We are proud of the - breadth of skills and dedication of our team.

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SFC hired an additional employee this year! Tracy Homer +is our new Operations Manager. Outside of Tracy's' work with SFC, she is +studying GIS at the University of Tennessee and is a board member of her local +hackerspace. We're so excited to have someone to with her set of skills help us +build out our organization. Helping out with everything from international +banking and tax questions, to conference planning, Tracy's been an incredible +addition to our team. She rounds out our team to 7 people (largest we've ever +been!).

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As a testament to “practice what you preach”, we undertook - what we consider a fair and equitable hiring process which our executive - director - Karen described - in detail on our website. We - lead by example — with transparency and casting a wide net to avoid just hiring within our circles.

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We also updated our website — hopefully, you'll find it easier to -use and that it better conveys our mission and work. Our chat platform moved -to XMPP. Bridging to IRC and -Matrix is supported, so you are welcome to join with whatever client you like -(unlike other “Loose” options). Throughout the seemingly-endless video -chatting during the pandemic, we have been one of only two FOSS organizations -who insist on using FOSS video chat platforms like Big Blue Button. We are -committed to using free software for communication and demonstrating that -organizations of all sizes can make the same commitment.

Writing and Speaking

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Software Freedom Conservancy team members published important writings - this year to both share essential historical context and modern - interpretations. Denver Gingerich wrote about - the installation requirement for - the GPLv2. Bradley M. Kuhn documented the historical record in his - related piece - about “Tivoization” - and Your Right to Install Under Copyleft. Bradley also explained - how It - Matters Who Owns Your Copylefted Copyrights — which - garnered a lot of great community conversations. In another vein, Sage - Sharp of Outreachy wrote a tremendous piece - titled So you want to - apologize… Now what? — which has helped explain the - entire life cycle apologizing for your own behavior. We can all learn from - this piece about how to act more humanely in our shared spaces of - production.

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Our staff has been presenting and speaking about software freedom all year. +Our Executive Director Karen Sandler gave a remote keynote address at the 2022 +Public Domain & Open Source SW License Conference in Seoul, Korea. We also +published a talk +Karen gave to update folks on the Vizio law suit. Karen was also at +All Things Open for the Open Source Law Policy and Practice Book Panel. +She was joined other experts who +contributed to the book and +they had a conversation about current state and best practice for legal policy +around free and open source software in addition to conducting a book signing +(You can check out another book that Karen contributed a chapter to along with +Marie Moe, "Modified: Living as a Cyborg", +which became more widely available this year.)

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This was another long year of online conferences. While the traveling was - easier (by not doing it), we miss the face to face relationship building - that we've come to expect from our big - conference gatherings. We can't wait to get back to a sense of normalcy and - at least have a little less latency between us.

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+ Booth with banners and merch at SCaLEx19 +

Pono took a photo of the SFC booth at SCaLEx19

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Karen, our executive director, gave two keynotes this year, one at the Leuven AI Law & Ethics Conference and another at Linux App Summit. Karen also spoke with Marina Zhurakhinskaya at All Things Open about the 10+ year history of Outreachy. Karen was also an invited speaker at Big Data, A.I. and Healthy Longevity: How to progress faster and better for all scientists.

+

Pono gave a keynote at +Git Merge this October. Speaking on how the Git project is a canonical +model for free software development and the ways it teaches by leading the way. +He also boothed at SCaLE +19x, which was great to have the community centered conference back in +action.

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Karen and Bradley were also co-organizers (with others) of the Legal & - Policy Devroom at FOSDEM, where they also moderated panels and spoke. - Daniel Pono Takamori gave a talk - about How - Free Software Continues the Legacy of Open Communication to the - Portland Linux/ Unix Group.

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We were also a sponsor of the -fantastic SeaGL event. A community focused -conference that does an incredible job giving opportunities to first-time -speakers (suitable for community members of all walks of life). They hosted -their conference on the Matrix platform, which further proved it's possible -to run a virtual conference with free software.

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Sage spoke at the September 2022 Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative EOSS, sharing +advice on how Outreachy has improved its own inclusive processes, and the group +discussed potential solutions for unresolved DEI issues in open science +communities. Karen and Bradley co-organized the FOSDEM Legal & Policy DevRoom, +which was held remotely. In addition to helping to organize the room, they also +participated in a panel with the other organizers about the most critical +topics facing FOSS today. SFC staffers also participate in key meetings to +represent community interests in a variety of FOSS related discussions +concerning security, governmental use of FOSS and in critical infrastructure +discussions and also presented in classroom to educate students about software +freedom.

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software freedom that the world needs. Please consider donating now!

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Zack, Karen, John and Jim pose, mostly wearing the vintage t-shirt!

Vintage-shirt-wearing Sustainers pose with Karen!
From left: Stefano “Zack” Zacchiroli, Karen M. Sandler, John Sullivan, and Jim Wright

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We're all sick of hearing about supply chains, global shortages, and - deliveries being delayed. But we must tell you up-front that since we have - a small staff we try to batch our t-shirt orders, and given the realities - of the pandemic, we are often a few months behind on t-shirt deliveries. - Those owed t-shirts from early 2021 renewals should receive them by years' - end. Meanwhile, we're working on a new t-shirt design for this year; check - back here for an announcement later in the fundraising season! All - renewals during this fundraising season will receive the new shirt! We so - appreciate everyone's patience!

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Vintage T-Shirt Promotion

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If you're a Sustainer, you've already received or will soon receive a - t-shirt in our 2018 design shown here. But, -would you like to take advantage of a last chance to get our vintage design — seen sported so often -by our earliest Sustainers at conferences and events? If so, read on!

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-Brett wears the 2018 t-shirt! -

Brett Smith wears the current t-shirt design.

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UPDATE: Just give $256 total for this year's fundraiser and - receive an additional vintage T-shirt!

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But first, as a note to how difficult this year has been, we know that many of our 2019 Sustainers are still -awaiting their t-shirts, which have the wonderful 2018 design. We've had difficulty working through -keeping our staff safe during the pandemic lock downs and making trips to the post office — historically, -we on staff all shared the post office trips, but we all have different COVID-19 risk factors and thus it's all moving -slowly. We appreciate the patience of our Sustainers waiting for t-shirts, and we do have plan to safely send out -the backlog by years' end.

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As part of those preparations, we found a treasure trove and now have an exciting promotion for renewing -Sustainers. We found an old stash of vintage t-shirts, in the old style! Supplies are limited, -but for those few sustainers who would like to receive one, we have a special offer. Sustainers who give -$256 or more between 2020-01-15 and 2021-01-15 can receive one of these vintage t-shirts! To claim your vintage t-shirt, do the following: - -

- Neil McGovern, Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation, wears the vintage t-shirt! -

Neil McGovern wearing that stylish vintage shirt!

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  • Renew as a an annual sustainer for $256 or more. (Alternatively, if - you already gave this year, make a separate donation so that your 2020 total is $256.)
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  • Email <vintaget@sfconservancy.org> and include the email - address and date(s) of your donation(s) that total $256 and your - desired size. (We have all sizes except MenM in - stock. Supplies are limited; we cannot necessarily guarantee - your size selection, and we'll continue to update here as sizes run out.)
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- A big stack of vintage Conservancy t-shirts! -

Supplies won't last; give $256 and make one of these vintage shirts yours today!

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You too can look cool in the vintage design. Or maybe your original has faded and you're ready to spruce up with a new one? As we said, -supplies are limited so make a big donation today, support Conservancy, and show you've always been old-school — or just -want to look that way!

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