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    <h4 class="toggle-control" data-text="Paper Check" 

    data-expanded-text="Paper Check:">Paper Check</h4>

    <div class="toggle-content">

    Send paper check for $120 to:<br/>

    Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc.<br/>

    137 MONTAGUE ST  STE 380<br/>

    BROOKLYN, NY 11201-3548 &nbsp; USA<br/>

    Please write <q>SUPPORTER</q>, t-shirt size, if you are renewing, and if

    you want public acknowledgment in memo line. 

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<p><a href="/donate">Even More Ways to Donate</a></p>

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

  <h1 class="appeal"><img class="appeal-header" alt="Become a Conservancy Supporter!" src="/img/conservancy-supporter-header.png"/></h1>

<h4>Software Freedom needs your help. </h4>

<p><em>Conservancy must move to a 

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

issues that nobody else is tackling.  Stand up for the GPL, support great 

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

<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>

The world today is powered increasingly by Free Software. But what 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> but this is more than our usual annual

  fundraising appeal.  As described in more detail below, after the events 

  of 2015, we must substantially increase our individual support to be able 

  to continue defending software freedom for our member projects and the 

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

  of our operations.</p>

<br clear="left"/>

<h4>2015 successes</h4>

<a href="/img/conservancy-staff-photo.jpg"><img class="appeal-right" src="/img/conservancy-staff-photo.jpg"/></a>

<p>

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

<ul>

<li>We brought four new projects under the protection of 

Conservancy: <a href="/news/2015/jul/23/qemu-joins/">QEMU</a>,

  the generic machine emulator and

virtualizer, <a href="https://www.bro.org/">The Bro Network Security

Monitor</a>, the <a href="http://www.godotengine.org/">Godot Game Engine</a>,

and <a href="http://outreachy.org">Outreachy</a>, a program dedicated to

helping people from underrepresented groups get involved in free and open

source software. We also worked with the Debian community to launch

the <a href="/news/2015/aug/17/debian/">Debian

Copyright Aggregation Project</a> at their request.</li>

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

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

first case on derivative works and the GPL.</li>

<li>We fought for

and <a href="/news/2015/oct/27/DMCA-win/">successfully

earned an exemption from the Library of Congress in the DMCA review

process</a> to legally permit circumvention of encryption on Smart TVs,

ensuring that you are free to hack on the devices that you legally own. </li>

<li>We collaborated with the <a href="https://fsf.org/">Free Software

Foundation</a> to publish

the <a href="/copyleft-compliance/principles.html">Principles

of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement</a>, establishing community norms for

enforcing the GPL in the public's interest, which have 

already been <a href="/copyleft-compliance/principles.kr.html">translated

into Korean</a>.</li>

<li>Along with FSF, we

helped <a href="/news/2015/jul/15/ubuntu-ip-policy/">Canonical,

Ltd. achieve compliance in its "Intellectual Property" Policy</a>, while

pointing out that the policy fails to address important software freedom

issues.</li>

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

the GPL, seeking non-litigious resolutions.</li>

<li>We helped, coordinated, and financially insured volunteers of three of

  our member projects to organize large annual conferences, where thousands of

  attendees learned about free and open source software.</li>

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<li>We made 173 contractor payments to developers writing free and open source 

  software, which included various different internships and contract

  software development work.</li>

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<li>We processed and paid 134 reimbursement requests to individuals doing work

  around the globe advocating for their free and open source software

  projects at conferences and other venues.</li>

<li>We gave keynotes

at <a href="/blog/2015/aug/17/debian/">DebConf</a>, <a href="https://archive.fosdem.org/2015/schedule/event/identity_crisis/">FOSDEM</a>, <a href="/blog/2015/jul/14/FISL16/">FISL</>, <a href="/news/2015/mar/31/libreplanet/">LibrePlanet</a>, <a href="/blog/2015/sep/30/linaro-keynote/">Linaro

Connect</a>,

and <a href="/blog/2015/dec/16/yir-fosdem-2015/">participated</a> <a href="/blog/2015/dec/12/yir-bkuhn-lca/">in</a>

<a href="/blog/2015/dec/11/yir-karen-lca/">many</a> more conferences all over the world; we also 

shared our expertise in initiatives

like <a href="https://copyleft.org/">copyleft.org</a>. We participated in

interviews and <a href="/blog/">blogposts</a>, and

Bradley and Karen published episodes of <a href="http://faif.us/">Free as in

Freedom</a>, dedicated to discussing the important issues in software

freedom.</li>

</ul>

<p>And we did <strong>all of this</strong> with <strong>only three full time employees</strong>.</p>

<p>We are focused on the most important ethical issues in software

freedom. We work tirelessly and don't shy away from difficult issues.</p>

<p>We're a unique organization &mdash; a staunch defender of copyleft (for Linux,

Debian and many of our member projects), a source of education and champions

of diversity for the community via Outreachy and other programs, and are the

legal home to over 30 member projects that are essential to developing free

software.</p>

<p>We undertake these critical programs because they are essential to the

future of technology. We do them because they are right. <strong>But we cannot do

them without you</strong>. If we do not meet our fundraising goals, we will be

forced to radically restructure.</p>

<p>Our fiscal sponsorship model is not financially self-sustaining by itself:

we cannot afford even one staff member and basic overhead with the revenue we

copyright and licensing advice, and license enforcement, we need even more

resources.  That's why our final target is 2,500 Supporters.  If you use

or care about our <a href="/members/current/">member projects</a>, which

include some of the most widely used free software, you can help them all

by <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">signing up as a Supporter

today</a>.</p>

<h4>Fighting for the GPL</h4>

<a href="/img/gpl-heart.png"><img class="appeal-right"  src="/img/gpl-heart.png"/></a>

<p>Many consider our GPL compliance and enforcement controversial.   We don't

think it is:  we stand up for

the GPL at the request of the Linux kernel community, the Debian community, 

and our member projects. Most recently, that has resulted in our funding

of the <a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">suit

against VMware</a>, which is the first lawsuit on derivative works and the

GPL. While this work is extremely important to the continued long-term

success of software freedom and copyleft not to mention in the long term 

interest of the industry as a whole, it makes fundraising from companies

very difficult.  Some companies 

have withdrawn from funding us and some have even successfully pressured 

conferences to cancel or prevent talks on our enforcement work. We do

this work because we think that it is good for everyone in the long run,

because we know it is the right thing to do, and because we know that we are

in the best position to do it. But that's not enough — you have to think it's

right too and <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">show us by

becoming a Supporter now</a>.</p>

<img alt="*** The Conservancy T-Shirt that Supporters Receive ***" class="appeal-left" src="/img/conservancy-t-shirt.jpg"/>

<h4>It's up to you</h4>

<p>We have raised enough money to continue the VMware case, but our overall

enforcement work needs additional support to be able to continue.  As we

state in

the <a href="/copyleft-compliance/principles.html">Principles

of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement</a>, we cannot prioritize profit in

these actions without compromising on the end goals of that work which is to

help companies become free and open source software users and contributors.

<p>Moreover, we have lost committed general funding from companies explicitly

because of our enforcement work. Continuing this work without individual

support is no longer possible.</p>

<p>As a result, we need 2,500 Supporters in order to maintain the staff and

resources in the organization to properly undertake enforcement. We hope you

will <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">sign up as a Supporter</a>