Software Freedom needs your help.
The world today is powered increasingly by Free Software. But what many people don't realize is how much support is needed to keep all of these projects free and open. The work that we do every day ensures the success and the continued freedom of the projects that the developers of our member projects so tirelessly dedicate themselves to. Projects like Git, Samba, Wine, BusyBox, QEMU, Inkscape, Selenium, and dozens more [FIXME Link to nascar pic]2015 successes
- We brought four new projects under the protection of the Conservancy: QEMU - the generic machine emulator and virtualizer, The Bro Network Security Monitor, the Godot Game Engine[FIXME] and Outreachy, a program dedicated to helping people from underrepresented groups get involved in free and open source software. We also worked with the Debian community to launch the Debian Copyright Aggregation Project at their request.
- We supported the law suit Christoph Hellwig has brought against VMware in Germany, the first case on derivative works and the GPL.
- We fought for and successfully earned an exemption from the Library of Congress in the DMCA review process to legally permit circumvention of encryption on Smart TVs, ensuring that you are free to hack on the devices that you legally own.
- We collaborated with the Free Software Foundation to publish the Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement , establishing community norms for enforcing the GPL in the public's interest[, and already translated into Korean [and Chinese].
- Along with FSF, we helped Canonical, Ltd. achieve compliance in its “Intellectual Property” Policy, while pointing out that the policy fails to address important software freedom issues.
- We conducted friendly discussions with companies out of compliance with the GPL, seeking non-litigious resolutions.
- We participated in the process of telling the FCC to fix its proposed rules restricting third-party modification of firmware in wireless devices.
- We gave keynotes at DebConf, FOSDEM, FISL, LibrePlanet, Linaro Connect and participated in many conferences more all over the world, and shared our expertise in initiatives like copyleft.org. We participated in interviews and blogposts, and Bradley and Karen published episodes of Free as in Freedom, dedicated to discussing the important issues in software freedom.
And we did all of this with only three full time employees.
We are focused on the most important ethical issues in software freedom. We work tirelessly and don't shy away from difficult issues.
We're a unique organization - a staunch defender of copyleft (for Linux, Debian and many of our member projects), a source of education and champions of diversity for the community via Outreachy and other programs, and are the legal home to over 30 member projects that are essential to developing free software.
We undertake these critical programs because they are essential to the future of technology. We do them because they are right. But we cannot do them without you. If we do not meet our fundraising goals, we will be forced to radically restructure.
Our fiscal sponsorship model is not financially self sustaining. We cannot afford even one staff member and basic overhead with the revenue we take in from our projects. In order to effectively continue to serve our member projects, we need [750] Supporters. If you use or care about our member projects, which include some of the most widely used free software, you can help them all by signing up as a Supporter today.
Fighting for the GPL
Our most controversial program is our GPL compliance work. We stand up for the GPL at the request of the Linux kernel community, the Debian community and our member projects. Most recently that has resulted in us funding the suit against VMware, which is the first law suit on derivative works and the GPL. While this work is extremely important to the continued long-term success of software freedom and copyleft, it makes fundraising from companies harder. While enforcement of the protections around free and open source software is in the long term interest of the industry, many companies are reluctant to fund organizations that take on this enforcement task. We do this work because we think that it is good for everyone in the long run, because we know it is the right thing to do and because we know that we are in the best position to do it. But that's not enough - you have to think it's right too and show us by becoming a Supporter now.
It's up to you
We have raised enough money to continue the VMware case but our overall enforcement work needs additional support to be able to continue. As we state in the Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement, we cannot prioritize profit in these actions without compromising on the end goals of that work which is to help companies become free and open source software users and contributors.
Moreover, we have lost committed general funding from companies explicitly because of our enforcement work. Continuing this work without individual support is no longer possible.
As a result, we need [2500] Supporters in order to maintain the staff and resources in the organization to properly undertake enforcement. We hope you will sign up a Supporter to help us achieve this. If we don't reach our goal, we will have no choice but to hibernate enforcement until we have the resources to pick it up properly at some point in the future.
If you care about the GPL, help us meet our goal so we can stand up for the GPL together.
Join as an Monthly Supporter
Monthly supporters will not receive any supporter benefits (including the t-shirt) until they've been monthly supporters for 12 months.