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                      <input type="radio" checked="checked" name="on1" value="publicAckYes" />Yes

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                      <input type="radio" checked="checked" name="os1" value="joinListYes" />Yes

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                      <div id="renewal" class="supporter-form-submit">

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<p><em>Conservancy is continuing its shift towards being a

Supporter-driven organization so we can focus on critical free software 

issues.  Stand up for the GPL, support great 

member projects, and make your voice heard in support of free software. 

We're counting on you. 

<a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">Donate today!</a></em></p>

<!--- FIXME scale this properly like on VMware page -->

<a href="/img/member-project-logos.png"><img class="appeal-left" src="/img/member-project-logos.png"/></a>

<p>

Software is critical to all of our infrastructure and as a society, we are deeply reliant on the software we use. Making sure our software is free and open is essential to knowing we'll be able to use tomorrow the solutions we invest in today. Software freedom is fundamental — we need it in order to effectively solve our problems in the long term. While the world today is powered increasingly by free software, 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 dedicate themselves to. Projects like Git, Samba,

Wine, BusyBox, QEMU, Inkscape, Selenium, and dozens more.</p>

<p>We are asking for you

  to <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">join us and become a

    Conservancy Supporter</a>. Last year, we said needed at least 750 

  of you to become annual Supporters just to continue our basic community

  services, and we thank you so much that you responded.  But 

  we still need 2,500 (total) of you to become annual Supporters to continue

  our licensing work through 2017, including defending copyleft.  If you don't become a Supporter now,

  we will be forced to radically restructure and wind down a substantial portion

  of our operations.</p>

<p>

Software Freedom Conservancy has had a lot of major successes this year:

<ul>

<li>We brought three new projects under the protection of Conservancy: <a href="https://forums.librehealth.io/">LibreHealth</a>, a critical initiative for health in free and open source software, <a href="https://www.spec-ops.io/">Spec-Ops</a>, a project dedicated to creating of open standards in critical areas, including payments and identity

and <a href="http://brew.sh/">Homebrew</a>, a software package manager for Apple's OS X. </li>

<li>We <a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">supported

the lawsuit</a> Christoph Hellwig brought against VMware in Germany, the

first case on derivative works and the GPL. Christoph's case <a href="/news/2016/aug/09/vmware-appeal/">continues on appeal</a>.</li>

<li>We helped Conservancy projects Bro, Buildbot, and Godot receive Mozilla MOSS grants. Another Conservancy project, phpMyAdmin, successfully completed a thorough security audit as part of Mozilla's Secure Open Source Fund (no serious issues were found!).</li>

<li>We <a href="/news/2016/may/10/yorba-assigns-copyrights/">received an assignment of copyrights from the Yorba Foundation</a>, including Shotwell and Geary, in order to safeguard those copyrights for the future.</li>

<li>We conducted friendly discussions with companies out of compliance with

the GPL, seeking non-litigious resolutions in accordance with our <a href="/copyleft-compliance/principles.html">Principles</a>. We <a href="/news/2016/nov/03/linux-compliance-agreements/">published our template agreements</a> and held two <a href="https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/706361/a9ca4ee12c04d5d7/">feedback</a> <a href="/blog/2016/oct/27/feedback-gpl/"> sessions</a> to evaluate and improve our compliance efforts. We also worked with other community members to <a href="/blog/2016/jul/19/patrick-mchardy-gpl-enforcement/">bring clarity to international activities around GPL compliance</a> and help make the ecosystem safer for free software adoption. We stayed committed to providing <a href="/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/">straightforward analysis about the GPL</a>.</li>

<li>Our Executive Director, Karen Sandler, <a href="/news/2016/feb/23/FOSSA-testimony/">testified to the New York City Council Committee on Contracts in favor of the Free and Open Source Software Act and the Civic Commons Act</a> which would increase the use of free and open source software by New York City departments and agencies. Karen later in the year also <a href="/news/2016/oct/26/karen-sandler-oscon-eu-2016/">taught kids in London about free software</a>.</li>

<li>We <a href="/blog/?tag=ContractPatch">launched a new initiative called ContractPatch</a> to help provide information and understanding about employment agreements.</li>

fronts, and we're proud of what we've been able to accomplish in 2016.  To

do even more in 2017 and in the years to come, we need your help.</p>

<p>We believe 2017 will be a critical year for Conservancy, our member

projects, and our work.  We look forward to making huge strides in providing

software tools for public charities as well as services for developer 

communities.  We will continue to champion the rights of the public and the

interests of copyright holders who have licensed their contributions to the 

commons for the public's benefit.  We will continue to host and speak at

conferences, create and maintain educational resources, and raise awareness

about how free and open source software is essential to a free and open

source society. </p>

<p>While we appreciate our corporate donors, we simply cannot depend 

solely on grants from companies who may not find our mission to be 

compatible with shifting corporate strategies.  We need you, the public as

well.  Simply put, we need 2,500 Supporters in order to maintain our staff, 

continue to provide a full range of administrative, bookkeeping, and legal

services to our member projects, educate the public, <strong>and</strong>

undertake compliance efforts.  We hope you will <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">sign up as a Supporter</a> to help us achieve this. If we don't reach our goal, we will 

have no choice but to hibernate some of our activities — likely 

our compliance efforts — until we have the resources to resume them

properly at some point in the future.</p>

<p>If you care about Conservancy's mission, <a href="#donate-box" 

class="donate-now">help us meet our goal</a> so we can stand up for software

freedom together.</p>

<p>Please <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">join our Supporter program</a> 

and spread the word!</p>

</div>

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