{% extends "base_conservancy.html" %}

{% load cache %}

{% load humanize %}

{% block head %}

<link href="/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

<link href="/forms.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

{% endblock %}

{% block outercontent %}

<div class="content-with-donate-sidebar">

    <div id="container">

            <h2>What We Do</h2>

            {% include 'submenus/what_we_do_partial.html' %}

            <ul>

            </ul>

         </div>

         <div id="mainContent">

           {% block content %}

           <h1>What We Do</h1>

           <p>Software Freedom Conservancy is a nonprofit organization

           centered around ethical technology. Our mission is to ensure the

           right to repair, improve and reinstall software. We promote and

           defend these rights through fostering free and open source

           software (FOSS) projects, driving initiatives that actively make

           technology more inclusive, and advancing policy strategies that

             defend FOSS (such as copyleft).</p>

{% extends "base_compliance.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Copyleft Compliance Projects - {% 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>

{% block subtitle %}Copyleft Compliance Projects - {% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1>Software Freedom Conservancy files right-to-repair lawsuit against California TV manufacturer Vizio Inc. for alleged GPL violations</h1>

<h2>Litigation is historic in nature due to its focus on consumer rights, filing as third-party beneficiary</h2>

<p><strong>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE</strong></p>

<p>IRVINE, Calif. (Oct. 19, 2021) Software Freedom Conservancy announced today

it has filed a lawsuit against Vizio Inc. for what it calls repeated failures

to fulfill even the basic requirements of the General Public License (GPL).</p>

{% extends "base_compliance.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Copyleft Compliance Projects - {% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1 id="contribution-and-similarity-analysis-of-christoph-hellwigs-linux-code-as-found-in-vmware-esxi-5.5">Contribution and Similarity Analysis of Christoph Hellwig's Linux Code as found in VMware ESXi 5.5</h1>

<p>This analysis verifies by reproducible analysis a set of specific contributions that are clearly made by Christoph Hellwig to Linux, and shows how those contributions appear in the VMware ESXi 5.5 product.</p>

<p>This analysis was prepared and written by <a href="/about/staff/#bkuhn">Bradley M. Kuhn</a>.</p>

<h1 id="understanding-code-similarity-and-cloning">Understanding Code Similarity and &quot;Cloning&quot;</h1>

<p>Software is often modified in various ways; indeed, Linux developers form a community that encourages and enables modification by many parties. Given this development model, communities often find it valuable to determine when software source code moves from one place to another with only minor modifications. Various scientifically-vetted techniques can be used to identify &quot;clones&quot; -- a portion of code that is substantially similar to pre-existing source code. The specific area of academic research is called &quot;code cloning detection&quot; or &quot;code duplication detection&quot;. The area has been under active research since the mid-1990s <a href="#fn1" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref1"><sup>1</sup></a>. In 2002, Japanese researchers published a tool called CCFinder <a href="#fn2" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref2"><sup>2</sup></a>, which, in its updated incarnation (called CCFinderX), is widely used and referenced by academic researchers in the field <a href="#fn3" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref3"><sup>3</sup></a> and has specifically been used to explore reuses of code in GPL'd software such as Linux <a href="#fn4" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref4"><sup>4</sup></a>.</p>

<p>CCFinderX uses a token-based clone detection method and a suffix-tree matching algorithm; both techniques have been highly vetted and considered in the academic literature. The techniques are considered viable and useful in detecting clones. Many academic papers on the subject have been peer-reviewed and published, and nearly every newly published paper compares its new techniques of clone detection to the seminal results found by CCFinderX. For purposes of our analysis, we have therefore chosen to use CCFinderX. These results can be easily reproduced since CCFinderX is, itself, also Open Source software.</p>

<h1 id="establishing-a-baseline-of-the-ccfinderx-tool">Establishing A Baseline of the CCFinderX Tool</h1>

<p>CCFinderX offers many statistics for clone detection. After expert analysis, we concluded that most relevant to this situation is the &quot;ratio of similarity&quot; between the existing code and the new code. To establish a baseline, we considered two different comparisons of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). First, we compared the Linux kernel, Version 4.5.2, to the FreeBSD kernel, Version 10.3.0. This comparison was inspired by the similar 2002 study <a href="#fn5" class="footnoteRef" id="fnref5"><sup>5</sup></a> of these two large C programs. The hypothesis remained that CCFinderX would encounter a low but significant percentage of code similarity, since the FreeBSD and Linux projects collaborate on some subprojects and willingly share code under the 3-Clause BSD license for those parts. (These collaborations are public and well-documented.)</p>

<p>The experiment confirmed the hypothesis. We found that a 3.68% &quot;ratio of similarity&quot; when comparing code from Linux to the FreeBSD kernel.</p>

<p>Next, we compared the source code of the Linux Kernel 4.5.2 to the LLVM+Clang system, version 3.8.0. These two projects are each a large program that are not known to actively share code. There may be some very minimal similarity simply due to chance, but something much lower than the 3.68% found between Linux and FreeBSD's kernel.</p>

{% extends "base_compliance.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Copyleft Compliance Projects - {% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h2>The time has come to stand up for the GPL.</h2>

<p><strong>Update 2019-04-02:</strong> Please

  see <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/apr/02/vmware-no-appeal/">this

  announcement regarding conclusion of the VMware suit in Germany</a>.  Since the suit has

  concluded, any funds you donate here will support our ongoing compliance efforts.  The

  remaining material below is left as it was before that announcement:</p>

<p><em>In March 2015, Conservancy <a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">announced Christoph Hellwig's

    lawsuit against VMware in Germany</a>.  In July 2016,

    we <a href="/news/2016/aug/09/vmware-appeal/">announced that Christoph

{% extends "base_compliance.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Copyleft Compliance Projects - {% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1>Frequently Asked Questions about Christoph Hellwig's VMware Lawsuit</h1>

<p><strong>Update 2019-04-02:</strong> Please

  see <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/apr/02/vmware-no-appeal/">this

  announcement regarding conclusion of the VMware suit in Germany</a>.  Since the suit has

  concluded, any funds you donate here will support our ongoing compliance efforts.  The

  remaining material below is left as it was before that announcement:</p>

<p>Conservancy maintains this

  <abbr title="Frequently Asked Questions">FAQ</abbr> list regarding

    list-style: none;

    padding: 3px 10px 3px 10px;

    margin: 5px;

    border: 1px solid #CCC;

    background: #eaf1f1;

    background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #fff, #eaf1f1);

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    background: linear-gradient(to bottom, #fff, #eaf1f1);

    filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr='#ffffff', endColorstr='#eaf1f1', GradientType=0);

}

#container #sidebar li a:hover { background: #577632; color: #fff; }

#container #sidebar.Directors ul li.Directors,

#container #sidebar.Eval ul li.Eval,

#container #sidebar.Overview ul li.Overview,

#container #sidebar.Contact ul li.Contact,

#container #sidebar.Staff ul li.Staff,

#container #sidebar.Outside ul li.Outside,

#container #sidebar.Transparency ul li.Transparency,

#container #sidebar.License ul li.License,

#container #sidebar.Current ul li.Current,

#container #sidebar.Services ul li.Services,

#container #sidebar.Applying ul li.Applying,

#container #sidebar.VizioPressRelease ul li.VizioPressRelase,

#container #sidebar.VizioPressKit ul li.VizioPressKit,

#container #sidebar.VizioPhotoAssets ul li.VizioPhotoAssets,

#container #sidebar.Glossary ul li.Glossary,

#container #sidebar.HelpComply ul li.HelpComply,

#container #sidebar.EnforcementStrategy ul li.EnforcementStrategy,

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}

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    text-align: center;

    font-size: 1.25em;

    margin: 1.5em 0 0.8em 0;

}

#container #sidebar hr {

    width: 75%;

/* Resources - book styles */

hr.chapter-separator { display: none; }

h2.likechapterHead { text-align: center; }

h2.chapterHead { text-align: center; }

#mainContent ul.author { list-style-type: none; padding-left: 0; }

#mainContent div.footnotes { font-style: normal; } /* remove italics */

span.sectionToc { padding-left: 2em; } /* indent TOC properly */

span.subsectionToc { padding-left: 4em; }

span.subsubsectionToc { padding-left: 6em;}

.js, .js p, .js p.bibitem, .js p.bibitem-p { background-color: #cde7e9; }

body.conservancy-Projects #navbar ul li.Projects > a,

body.conservancy-news #navbar ul li.news > a,

body.conservancy-blog #navbar ul li.blog > a,

body.conservancy-About #navbar ul li.About > a,

body.conservancy-Compliance #navbar ul li.compliance > a,

body.conservancy-donate #navbar ul li.donate > a,

body.conservancy-npoacct #navbar ul li.npoacct > a,

body.conservancy-sponsors #navbar ul li.sponsors > a /* NO COMMA HERE! */

{

    border-bottom: 4px solid var(--khaki-green);

}

#supporters ul {

{% extends "base_learn.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Press Kit - {% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1 id="PressInformation">Press Kit</h1>

<p>Here's a collection of documents (collated and individual) for distribution

   and reference.</p>

<p><a href="#fixme">Full Press Kit</a></p>

<p><a href="#fixme">Press Release</a></p>

<p><a href="#fixme">Glossary</a></p>

<p><a href="#fixme">Q&A</a></p>

<p><a href="#fixme">Quotes</a></p>

{% block subtitle %}Press - {% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1 id="QandA">Vizio Lawsuit Q &amp; A</h1>

<a href="https://shoestring.agency/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SFC_QA_GeneralPublic.pdf">[

         A PDF version of this Q&amp;A is available. ]</a>

<h3 id="">Q: Who is the defendant in this lawsuit?</h3>

<p>The defendant is Vizio, Inc., a U.S.-based TV maker and media company that has been publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange since March 2021.</p>

<h3 id="">Q: What did Vizio do wrong?</h3>

{% extends "base_conservancy.html" %}

{% block outercontent %}

    <div id="container">

            {% include 'submenus/who_we_are_partial.html' %}

         </div>

               <div id="mainContent">{% block content %}{% endblock %}

               </div>

   </div>

{% endblock %}

{% extends "base_conservancy.html" %}

{% block category %}blog{% endblock %}

{% block head %}

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="/feeds/blog/" />

{% endblock %}

{% block outercontent %}

 <div id="container">

<h2>Authors</h2>

<ul>

{% for author in all_authors %}

<li><a href="/blog/?author={{ author.username }}">{{ author.formal_name }}</a>

(<a href="/feeds/blog/?author={{ author.username }}">rss</a>)</li>

{% endfor %}

</ul>

<h2>Tags</h2>

<ul>

{% for tag in all_tags %}

<li><a href="{{ tag.get_absolute_url }}">{{ tag.label }}</a>

{% extends "base_conservancy.html" %}

{% load cache %}

{% load humanize %}

{% block head %}

<link href="/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

<link href="/forms.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

{% endblock %}

{% block outercontent %}

<div class="content-with-donate-sidebar">

    <div id="container">

            <h2>What We Do</h2>

            {% include 'submenus/what_we_do_partial.html' %}

            <h2>Vizio Lawsuit</h2>

            <ul>

            <li class="VizioPressRelease"><a href="/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html">Press Release</a></li>

            <li class="VizioComplaint"><a href="/docs/software-freedom-conservancy-v-vizio-complaint-2021-10-19.pdf">Complaint</a></li>

            <li class="VizioQandA"><a href="/press/qanda.html">Q&amp;A</a></li>

            </ul>

            <h2>Resources for Journalists</h2>

            <ul>

            <li class="VizioPressKit"><a href="/docs/software-freedom-conservancy-v-vizio-announce-press-kit.pdf">Press Kit</a></li>

            <li class="VizioPhotoAssets"><a href="/docs/software-freedom-conservancy-v-vizio-photo-assets.zip">Photo Assets</a></li>

            <li class="Glossary"><a href="/copyleft-compliance/glossary.html">Glossary</a></li>

            </ul>

            <ul>

            <li class="HelpComply"><a href="/copyleft-compliance/help.html">How To Help</a></li>

            <li class="EnforcementStrategy"><a href="/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html">Strategic GPL Enforcement Initiative</a></li>

            <li class="CopyleftPrinciples"><a href="/copyleft-compliance/principles.html">Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement</a></li>

            <li class="LiberateFirmware"><a href="/copyleft-compliance/firmware-liberation.html">Liberate IoT Firmware via GPL Enforcement</a></li>

            <li class="PastLawsuits"><a href="/copyleft-compliance/past-lawsuits.html">Previous Copyleft Litigation</a></li>

            <li class="CopyleftOrg"><a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft.org</a></li>

            </ul>

         </div>

               <div id="mainContent">{% block content %}{% endblock %}

               </div>

    </div>

    <div class="donate-sidebar">

    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="/css/conservancy.css" />

    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="(min-width: 67em)" href="/css/conservancy-bigscreen.css" />

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/jquery-ui-1.8.22.custom.css" />

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/jquery.ui.multiprogressbar.css" />

    <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery-1.7.2.js"></script>

    <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery-ui-1.8.22.custom.min.js"></script>

    <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery.outerhtml.js"></script>

    <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery.ui.multiprogressbar.js"></script>

    <script type="text/javascript" src="/js/conservancy.js"></script>

    {% block head %}{% endblock %}

  </head>

    <header>

      <div class="flex-ns center mw8">

        <div class="w-60-ns">

          <h1 id="conservancyheader" class="mt2 mt3-ns mb2 mb3-ns">

            <a href="/">

              <img src="{% static 'img/conservancy-header.svg' %}" alt="Software Freedom Conservancy" class="db center mh3-ns" />

            </a>

          </h1>

        </div>

        <div class="w-40-ns mt2 mt4-ns mb2 mb2-ns mh2 pt1 flex flex-wrap justify-center items-center">

          <span id="menu-icon" class="dn-ns ph2 pointer">

          <li class="npoacct"><a href="/npoacct/">NPOAcct</a></li>

          -->

          <li class="search dn-ns">

            <form method="get" action="https://duckduckgo.com" class="ml2 flex mw6">

              <input id="search-query" type="text" name="q" placeholder="Search with DuckDuckGo" class="pa2 ba b--gray br0" style="x-border-right: none; flex: 1 1 auto; width: 1%;" />

              <input type="hidden" name="sites" value="sfconservancy.org" />

              <button type="submit" class="bg-orange bn white pa2 pointer btn-orange" style="margin-left: -1px;">

                <svg style="color: white; width: 20px; height: 20px;"><use href="{% static 'img/font_awesome.svg' %}#search"></use></svg></a>

              </button>

    </form>

          </li>

            {% include 'submenus/what_we_do_partial.html' %}

          </li>

            {% include 'submenus/who_we_are_partial.html' %}

          </li>

            {% include 'submenus/learn_partial.html' %}

          </li>

            {% include 'submenus/news_partial.html' %}

          </li>

        </ul>

      </div>

      <div id="navbar-clear"></div>

    </div>

{% comment %}

# FUNDRAISER VARIABLES AND CONSTANTS GUIDE

## From Local Context

{% extends "base_conservancy.html" %}

{% block outercontent %}

    <div id="container">

            <h2>Learn</h2>

            {% include 'submenus/learn_partial.html' %}

            <h2>Resources for Journalists</h2>

            <ul>

            <li class="News"><a href="/news/">News</a></li>

            <li class="PressKit"><a href="/press/">Press Kit</a></li>

            <li class="Glossary"><a href="/copyleft-compliance/glossary.html">Glossary</a></li>

            </ul>

   </div>

               <div id="mainContent">{% block content %}{% endblock %}

               </div>

</div>

{% extends "base_standard.html" %}

{% block head %}

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="/feeds/news/" />

{% endblock %}

{% extends "base_conservancy.html" %}

{% load cache %}

{% load humanize %}

{% block head %}

<link href="/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

<link href="/forms.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>

{% endblock %}

{% block outercontent %}

<div class="content-with-donate-sidebar">

    <div id="container">

            <h2>What We Do</h2>

            {% include 'submenus/what_we_do_partial.html' %}

            <h2>Resources for Journalists</h2>

            <ul>

            <li class="News"><a href="/news/">News</a></li>

            <li class="PressKit"><a href="/press/">Press Kit</a></li>

            <li class="Glossary"><a href="/copyleft-compliance/glossary.html">Glossary</a></li>

            </ul>

         </div>

               <div id="mainContent">{% block content %}{% endblock %}

               </div>

{% extends "base_conservancy.html" %}

{% block outercontent %}

    <div id="container">

            <h2>What We Do</h2>

            {% include 'submenus/what_we_do_partial.html' %}

            <h2>{% block category %}Projects{% endblock %} &amp; Services</h2>

            <ul>

            <li class="Current"><a href="/projects/current/">Current Member Projects</a></li>

            <li class="Applying"><a href="/projects/apply/">Applying</a></li>

            <li class="Services"><a href="/projects/services/">Member Project Services</a></li>

            <li class="Policies"><a href="/projects/policies/">Member Project Policies</a></li>

            </ul>

         </div>

               <div id="mainContent">{% block content %}{% endblock %}

               </div>

{% extends "base_conservancy.html" %}

{% load date_within %}

{% load static %}

{% block head %}

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Software Freedom Conservancy Complete Feed" href="/feeds/omnibus/" />

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Software Freedom Conservancy News" href="/feeds/news/" />

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Software Freedom Conservancy Blogs" href="/feeds/blog/" />

<style>

 #mainContent hr {

   /* Hide the <hr> elements in the list of news and blog items. */

   display: none;

 }

 .date {

   font-size: 1em;

{% extends "base_news.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}News - {% endblock %}

{% block outercontent %}

    <div id="container">

         <h2>News Index by Year</h2>

         <ul>

         {% for year in date_list reversed %}<li class="{{ year|date:"Y" }}"><a href="{{ year|date:"Y" }}/">{{ year|date:"Y" }}</a></li>{% endfor %}

         </ul>

         <h2>Resources for Journalists</h2>

         <ul>

            <li class="News"><a href="/news/">News</a></li>

            <li class="PressKit"><a href="/press/">Press Kit</a></li>

            <li class="Glossary"><a href="/copyleft-compliance/glossary.html">Glossary</a></li>

         </ul>

         </div>

<ul>

  <li class="FIXME"><a href="/projects/">Member Projects</a></li>

  <li class="Outreachy"><a href="https://outreachy.org">Outreachy</a></li>

</ul>

<ul>

  <li class="Transparency"><a href="/about/transparency">Transparency</a></li>

</ul>