critical approach to license compliance culminates  years of effort by our amazing policy and legal experts. We

  believe software freedom, when properly and actively upheld, enables everyone to hold

  technology providers accountable to the people most 

  impacted by their actions.</p>

<p id="dmca-exemptions">This year, we filed more DMCA exemption requests than any organization in

  the country —

  and <a href="/news/2021/oct/28/2021-DMCA-final-exemptions-win/">we won on

  every single one</a>.  We clarified the right to jailbreak of routers (an

  essential activity of our <a href="https://openwrt.org">OpenWrt

  project</a>), won a new right to safely investigate devices for license

  compliance, and helped solidify privacy-related research.  Karen (our

  executive director) also participated with a coalition that achieved yet

  another exemption for medical devices!  Our lawyer, Pam Chestek, <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/1201/2021/hearing-transcripts/210407-Section-1201-Public-Hearing-Class-15-7a-7b.pdf#page=13">testified</a> at the DMCA

  hearings on these exemptions, and confronted industry lobbyists directly as

  they sought to use their extreme

  wealth and legal power to harm consumers. We stridently fight their overreach &mdash; one bit at a time.</p>

</div>

<h3 id="Highlights">Highlights from some of our projects</h3>

<div data-read-more="Read more about our projects&hellip;">

  <p>Software Freedom Conservancy helped our projects engage in critical work

  this year. Overall, we raised, administered and facilitated <strong>$1.7 million</strong>

  go <em>directly</em> to fund <acronym title="Free and Open Source Software">FOSS</acronym>

  contributors.  We do the arduous work to sustain these FOSS communities:</p>

<p>We helped <b>Outreachy</b> expand to its largest cohorts ever. Our last

round accepted 71 interns, and we announced this week that the current round

 will have 62! (That's 133 interns &mdash; an <strong>27% growth</strong> from the previous two

rounds!) We're grateful to be able support Outreachy to serve more

communities who are committed to helping to push back against systemic

underrepresentation in technology and software.</p>

<p><b>Godot</b> has continued to push the boundary of what anyone thought was

  possible with an open source game engine.  Godot's impressive team, funded

  through contracts with Software Freedom Conservancy, continues to building

  their community and their excellent codebase.  We are so proud of their beneficial

  <a href="https://godotengine.org/community">focus on community</a>.  Watch

  their fun, exciting,

  and <a href="https://godotengine.org/article/announcing-2021-godot-games-showreel">brand

  new showreel</a> to see what these cutting edge creators are making.</p>

<p>Software Freedom Conservancy also proudly supports, with direct funding of

  contributors, the <b>Reproducible Builds</b> team.  They ensure the

  security of computer systems of all shapes and sizes around the world.

  This necessary and vital project becomes even more essential in the age of

  direct attacks on technological

Matrix is supported, so you are welcome to join with whatever client you like

(unlike other “Loose” options).  Throughout the seemingly-endless video

chatting during the pandemic, we have been one of only two FOSS organizations

who insist on using FOSS video chat platforms like Big Blue Button.  We are

committed to using free software for communication and demonstrating that

organizations of all sizes can make the same commitment.</p>

</div>

<h3 id="WritingAndSpeaking">Writing and Speaking</h3>

<div data-read-more="Find out about our writing and speaking engagements&hellip;">

<p>Software Freedom Conservancy team members published important writings

  this year to both share essential historical context and modern

  interpretations.  Denver Gingerich wrote about

  the <a href="/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/">installation requirement for

  the GPLv2</a>. Bradley M. Kuhn documented the historical record in his

  related piece

  about <a href="/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-the-gpl-right-to-install/">&ldquo;Tivoization&rdquo;

  and Your Right to Install Under Copyleft</a>. Bradley also explained

  how <cite><a href="/blog/2021/jun/30/who-should-own-foss-copyrights/">It

  Matters Who Owns Your Copylefted Copyrights</a></cite> &mdash; which

  garnered a lot of great community conversations. In another vein, Sage

  Sharp of Outreachy wrote a tremendous piece

  titled <cite><a href="/blog/2021/apr/20/how-to-apologize/">So you want to

  entire life cycle apologizing for your own behavior. We can all learn from

  this piece about how to act more humanely in our shared spaces of

  production.</p>

<p>This was another long year of online conferences. While the traveling was

 easier (by not doing it), we miss the face to face relationship building

  that we've come to expect from our big

  conference gatherings. We can't wait to get back to a sense of normalcy and

  at least have a little less latency between us.</p>

<p>Karen, our executive director, gave two keynotes this year, one at the <a href="/news/2021/mar/23/karen-lailec-2021/">Leuven AI Law &amp; Ethics Conference</a> and another at <a href="https://conf.linuxappsummit.org/event/3/contributions/71/">Linux App Summit</a>. Karen also spoke with Marina Zhurakhinskaya at <cite>All Things Open</cite> about the 10+ year history of Outreachy. Karen was also an invited speaker at <a href="https://heales.org/2021/05/28/conference-big-data-a-i-and-healthy-longevity-how-to-progress-faster-and-better-for-all-scientists-thursday-september-9-2021/">Big Data, A.I. and Healthy Longevity: How to progress faster and better for all scientists</a>.</p>

<p>Karen and Bradley were also co-organizers (with others) of the Legal &amp;

  Policy Devroom at FOSDEM, where they also moderated panels and spoke.

  Daniel Pono Takamori gave a talk

  about <cite><a href="http://pdxlinux.org/2021-07-01-FreeSoftware-LegacyOfCommunication.pdf">How

  Free Software Continues the Legacy of Open Communication</a></cite> to the

  Portland Linux/ Unix Group.</p>

<p>We were also a sponsor of the

fantastic <a href="https://seagl.org/">SeaGL</a> event. A community focused

conference that does an incredible job giving opportunities to first-time

speakers (suitable for community members of all walks of life). They hosted

their conference on the Matrix platform, which further proved it's possible