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{% block subtitle %}Copyleft Compliance Projects - {% endblock %}
{% block submenuselection %}CopyleftCompliance{% endblock %}
{% block content %}
<h1 id="ourwork">Conservancy's Copyleft Compliance Projects</h1>
<p>As existing donors and sustainers know, the Software Freedom Conservancy
is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity registered in New York, and Conservancy
helps people take control of their computing by growing the software
freedom movement, supporting community-driven alternatives to proprietary
software, and defending free software with practical initiatives.
Conservancy accomplishes these goals with various initiatives, including
defending and upholding the rights of software users and consumers under
copyleft licenses, such as the GPL.</p>
<p>Free and open source software (FOSS) is everywhere and in everything; yet
our software freedom is constantly eroded. With the help of its
volunteers, <a href="/members/current/">member projects</a>,
and <a href="/about/staff/">staff</a>, Conservancy stands up for users'
software freedom via its copyleft compliance work.</p>
<p>Conservancy's primary work in copyleft compliance currently focuses on
our <a href="/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html">Strategic GPL
Enforcement Initiative</a>. This initiative, <a href="/news/2020/oct/01/new-copyleft-strategy-launched-with-ARDC-grant/">launched in October 2020</a>,
represents the culmination of nearly 15 years of compliance work of
Conservancy spanning ten different fiscally sponsored projects, past lawsuits
against more than a dozen defendants, and hundreds of non-litigation
compliance actions.</p>
<p>For these many years, Conservancy has always given the benefit of the
doubt to companies who exploited our good nature and ultimately simply
ignore the rights of users and consumers. In that time, the compliance
industrial complex has risen to a multi-million-dollar industry —
selling (mostly proprietary) products, services, and consulting to
companies. Yet, these compliance efforts ignore consistently the most
essential promise of copyleft — the complete, Corresponding Source
and “the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the
executable”.</p>
<p>We encourage our sustainers and software freedom enthusiasts everywhere to
<a href="/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html">read our detailed
strategic plan for GPL enforcement</a> and its companion
project, <a href="/copyleft-compliance/firmware-liberation.html">our
Firmware Liberation Project</a>.</p>
<h2 id="projects">Compliance Relationship to Fiscally Sponsored Projects</h2>
<p>Historically, Conservancy was well-known for its ongoing license
compliance efforts on behalf of its BusyBox member project. Today,
Conservancy does semi-regular compliance work for its BusyBox, Git, Inkscape,
Mercurial, Samba, QEMU and Wine member projects. If you are a copyright
holder in any member project of Conservancy, please contact the project's
leadership committtee,
via <a href="mailto:PROJECTNAME@sfconservancy.org"><PROJECTNAME@sfconservancy.org></a>
for more information on getting involved in compliance efforts in that
project.
</p>
<h2 id="linux">GPL Compliance Project For Linux Developers</h2>
<p>In May
2012, <a href="/news/2012/may/29/compliance/">Conservancy
launched</a> the <cite>GPL
Compliance Project for Linux Developers</cite>, which handles compliance and
enforcement activities on behalf of more than a dozen Linux copyright
holders.</p>
<p>The GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers is comprised of copyright
holders in the kernel, Linux, who have contributed to Linux under its
license, <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html">the
GPLv2</a>. These copyright holders have formally asked Conservancy to engage
in compliance efforts for their copyrights in the Linux kernel. In addition,
some developers have directly assigned their copyrights on Linux to Conservancy,
so Conservancy also enforces the GPL on Linux via its own copyrights in Linux.</p>
<p>Linux copyright holders who wish to assign copyright to or sign an enforcement agreement with
Conservancy should
contact <a href="mailto:linux-services@sfconservancy.org"><linux-services@sfconservancy.org></a>.
In 2016,
Conservancy <a href="/news/2016/nov/03/linux-compliance-agreements/">made
public the template agreements used as part of this project</a>; both the
<a href="/docs/blank_linux-enforcement-agreement.pdf">non-anonymous</a> and
<a href="/docs/blank_anonymous-linux-enforcement-agreement.pdf">anonymous</a>
versions are available. However, please <strong>do not</strong> sign these
unilaterally without contacting and discussing
with <a href="mailto:linux-services@sfconservancy.org"><linux-services@sfconservancy.org></a>
first.</p>
<h2 id="debian">The Debian Copyright Aggregation Project</h2>
<p>In August 2015, <a href="/news/2015/aug/17/debian/">Conservancy announced the Debian Copyright Aggregation
Project</a>. This project allows Debian contributors to assign copyrights to
Conservancy, or sign enforcement agreements allowing Conservancy to enforce
Free and Open Source (FOSS) licenses on their behalf. Many Debian contributors
have chosen each of these options already, and more continue to join.</p>
<p>Debian contributors who wish to assign copyright to or sign an enforcement agreement with
Conservancy should contact <a href="mailto:debian-services@sfconservancy.org"><debian-services@sfconservancy.org></a>.</p>
<h2 id="commitment">Conservancy's Commitment to Copyleft License Compliance</h2>
<p>Conservancy is dedicated to encouraging all users of software to comply
with Free Software licenses. Toward this goal, in its compliance efforts,
Conservancy helps distributors of Free Software in a friendly spirit of
cooperation and participation. In this spirit, Conservancy has co-published,
with the Free Software Foundation (FSF), <a href="/copyleft-compliance/principles.html">the principles that both organizations
follow in their compliance efforts</a>.
</p>
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