74 lines
4 KiB
HTML
74 lines
4 KiB
HTML
{% extends "base_about.html" %}
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{% block subtitle %}About - {% endblock %}
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{% block submenuselection %}Overview{% endblock %}
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{% block content %}
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<h1>About Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc.</h1>
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<p>Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit
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organization incorporated in New York. Software Freedom Conservancy helps
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promote, improve, develop, and defend Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
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(FLOSS) projects. Conservancy provides a non-profit home and infrastructure
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for FLOSS projects. This allows FLOSS developers to focus on what they do
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best — writing and improving FLOSS for the general public — while
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Conservancy takes care of the projects' needs that do not relate directly to
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software development and documentation.</p>
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<p>FLOSS projects whose <a href="/members/apply">applications are
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accepted</a> become part of the Software Freedom Conservancy
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(akin to a separate department of a large agency). Once joined, the
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<a href="/members">“member project”</a> receives most of
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the benefits of existing as a non-profit corporate entity without
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engaging in the arduous work of forming a separate, new organization.
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Conservancy aggregates the work of running a FLOSS non-profit
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for <a href="/members/current/">its many members</a>.</p>
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<p>Conservancy provides <a href="/members/services/">many important services</a> for its
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member projects. Member projects can take directed donations, which
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allows donors to earmark their donations for the benefit of a specific
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FLOSS project. Conservancy provides fiscal oversight to ensure that
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these funds are spent in a manner that advances the project and fits
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with Conservancy's 501(c)(3) mission to promote, advance, and defend software freedom.</p>
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<p>If the member project's leaders want, Conservancy can also hold other
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assets and titles on behalf of the projects, such as copyrights,
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trademarks, domain names, online hosting accounts, and title and ownership
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of physical hardware. Also at discretion of the project's leaders,
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Conservancy can assist in defending the rights represented in these
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assets. For example, Conservancy is available to assist member projects
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in enforcing the terms of the projects' FLOSS license.</p>
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<p>Finally, developers of Conservancy's member projects, when operating in
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their capacity as project leaders, could receive some protection from personal
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liability for their work on the project.</p>
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<p>For further reading on the benefits of Conservancy, a full and detailed <a href="/members/services/">list of Conservancy's
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services for its member projects</a> and a <a href="/members/current/">a
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list of Conservancy's current member projects</a> are available.</p>
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<p>Conservancy and
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its <a href="/about/board">directors</a>, <a href="/about/officers">officers</a>,
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and <a href="/about/staff">staff</a> believe strongly in the principles
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of software freedom, and believe that all users should have the right to
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study, improve and share their software. Conservancy helps protect,
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enable, coordinate, facilitate and defend the public's right to copy,
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share, modify and redistribute FLOSS both non-commercially and
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commercially. Finally, like most organizations devoted to FLOSS,
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Conservancy opposes the notion of patents that cover software, and urges
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contributors to its member projects not to apply for patents.</p>
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<p>Conservancy strives to be as transparent as possible, and makes
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its <a href="/about/filings/">public filings available on its website</a>.
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Bradley M. Kuhn, Conservancy's President, <a href="/blog/">blogs
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regularly</a> about Conservancy's activities.
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Finally, <a href="/members/">detailed information about the work that
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Conservancy does for its member projects</a> is also available.</p>
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<p>If you have general questions about Conservancy and its
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work, <a href="/about/contact/">contact information</a> is available.
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Conservancy is primarily supported by <a href="/donate">your charitable
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donations</a>.</p>
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{% endblock %}
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